Jun 2022
LOVE AND LOVERS
by
TOD HOWARD HAWKS
Chapter 16
Jon was reflecting on the Peloponnesian Wars between Athens and Sparta in ancient Greece that he had studied as part of Columbia College’s CORE CURRICULUM.
Plato’s interest in ethics and political philosophy was greatly affected by Athens's abuses of power against weaker people, the exile of relatives, the disintegration of democratic values, and the rise of the oligarchy. Athens was eventually defeated by Sparta.
So what has changed, for the better, Jon thought. Essentially nothing. If anything, things on Earth have gotten progressively worse. All in all, this was why he was so moved, so adamant in his, and Bian’s, shared desire to turn the world “right-side in.” A Herculean task? Of course it was! But, in truth, every endeavor worth undertaking was, in its own way, a Herculean task. And what better task was there than righting wrongs, than saving our only home and all creations upon it.
During these solemn, solitary interludes, Jon often found both solace and renewed fortitude by reading poems he had written. This was one of those moments.
WE HAVE MINED OUR MOUNTAINS
We have mined our mountains,
we have fished our seas,
we have felled our forests,
we have gathered our grains,
but we have not yet embraced
the infinite energy of our souls,
which is love.
EVENING
It will get dark soon.
The white, yellow, and pink
houses will turn grey,
then black. The cacophony
of car horns will turn into
the chorus of locusts.
Summer's night will lay
a sheet of tranquility over
a city harassed by exigent
matters that matter not.
Soporific silhouettes will
soften the cityscape,
allowing us to escape
the frazzle of the hot day,
exchanging the frenetic
for the peaceful, the welter
for a sense of the well-being.
The susurrus of the evening
breeze blows the exhaust
of our polluted lives into
a distant day. Children play
in yards back and front and
laughter wafts through
neighborhoods like the sweet
smell of barbeque, not the
fetid odor of finance and
foreclosures. There is a
sense of closure to this day.
As the sun sets, our eyelids
close, and we pray for the
soft rain of forgiveness.
ARE WE ALL NOT IDIOMS
Are we all not idioms,
peculiar to ourselves
in construct and meaning?
Are not all of us
syntactical anomalies?
Do we not all have elliipses,
lacunae, egregious gaps
in our beings? Lack of
parallel construction in
our lives, dangling like
participles, a pronoun
without its antecedent?
Are not our lives run-
on sentences handed
up by unconscious wishes
and unmet needs? Too
bad we could not be
more declarative and
less rhetorical or
imperative.
THOSE WHO RULE
We shall keep the poor poor.
We shall be on them like
a master's whip on the backs
of slaves; but they will not
know us: we are too far and
too close. We shall use the
patois of patriotism to patronize
them. We shall hide behind our
flags, while we hold only one pole.
We shall have the poor fight our
wars for us, and die for us; and
before they die, they will **** for
us, we hope, enough. In peace,
we shall piecemeal them, and serve
them meals made of toxins and tallow.
For their labor, we shall pay them
slave wages; and all that we give,
we shall take back, and more, by
monumental scandals that subside
like day's sun at eventide. We shall
be clever, as ever, circumspect and
surreptitious at all times. We shall
keep them deluded with the verisimilitude
of hope, but undermine always its
being. We shall infuse their lives
with fear and hate, playing one
race against another, one religion
against a brother's. Disaffection is
our key; but we must modulate our
efforts deftly, so the poor remain
frightened and angered, but always
blind and deaf and divided. And if,
perchance, one foments, we shall
seize the moment and drop his head
into his hands, even as he speaks.
This internecine brew we pour, there-
fore, into the poor to keep them drunk
enmity and incapacitation. Ah,
eternal anticipation! Bottoms up,
old chaps! We, those who rule,
shall have them always in our laps.
We are, as it were, their salvation.
by
TOD HOWARD HAWKS
Chapter 16
Jon was reflecting on the Peloponnesian Wars between Athens and Sparta in ancient Greece that he had studied as part of Columbia College’s CORE CURRICULUM.
Plato’s interest in ethics and political philosophy was greatly affected by Athens's abuses of power against weaker people, the exile of relatives, the disintegration of democratic values, and the rise of the oligarchy. Athens was eventually defeated by Sparta.
So what has changed, for the better, Jon thought. Essentially nothing. If anything, things on Earth have gotten progressively worse. All in all, this was why he was so moved, so adamant in his, and Bian’s, shared desire to turn the world “right-side in.” A Herculean task? Of course it was! But, in truth, every endeavor worth undertaking was, in its own way, a Herculean task. And what better task was there than righting wrongs, than saving our only home and all creations upon it.
During these solemn, solitary interludes, Jon often found both solace and renewed fortitude by reading poems he had written. This was one of those moments.
WE HAVE MINED OUR MOUNTAINS
We have mined our mountains,
we have fished our seas,
we have felled our forests,
we have gathered our grains,
but we have not yet embraced
the infinite energy of our souls,
which is love.
EVENING
It will get dark soon.
The white, yellow, and pink
houses will turn grey,
then black. The cacophony
of car horns will turn into
the chorus of locusts.
Summer's night will lay
a sheet of tranquility over
a city harassed by exigent
matters that matter not.
Soporific silhouettes will
soften the cityscape,
allowing us to escape
the frazzle of the hot day,
exchanging the frenetic
for the peaceful, the welter
for a sense of the well-being.
The susurrus of the evening
breeze blows the exhaust
of our polluted lives into
a distant day. Children play
in yards back and front and
laughter wafts through
neighborhoods like the sweet
smell of barbeque, not the
fetid odor of finance and
foreclosures. There is a
sense of closure to this day.
As the sun sets, our eyelids
close, and we pray for the
soft rain of forgiveness.
ARE WE ALL NOT IDIOMS
Are we all not idioms,
peculiar to ourselves
in construct and meaning?
Are not all of us
syntactical anomalies?
Do we not all have elliipses,
lacunae, egregious gaps
in our beings? Lack of
parallel construction in
our lives, dangling like
participles, a pronoun
without its antecedent?
Are not our lives run-
on sentences handed
up by unconscious wishes
and unmet needs? Too
bad we could not be
more declarative and
less rhetorical or
imperative.
THOSE WHO RULE
We shall keep the poor poor.
We shall be on them like
a master's whip on the backs
of slaves; but they will not
know us: we are too far and
too close. We shall use the
patois of patriotism to patronize
them. We shall hide behind our
flags, while we hold only one pole.
We shall have the poor fight our
wars for us, and die for us; and
before they die, they will **** for
us, we hope, enough. In peace,
we shall piecemeal them, and serve
them meals made of toxins and tallow.
For their labor, we shall pay them
slave wages; and all that we give,
we shall take back, and more, by
monumental scandals that subside
like day's sun at eventide. We shall
be clever, as ever, circumspect and
surreptitious at all times. We shall
keep them deluded with the verisimilitude
of hope, but undermine always its
being. We shall infuse their lives
with fear and hate, playing one
race against another, one religion
against a brother's. Disaffection is
our key; but we must modulate our
efforts deftly, so the poor remain
frightened and angered, but always
blind and deaf and divided. And if,
perchance, one foments, we shall
seize the moment and drop his head
into his hands, even as he speaks.
This internecine brew we pour, there-
fore, into the poor to keep them drunk
enmity and incapacitation. Ah,
eternal anticipation! Bottoms up,
old chaps! We, those who rule,
shall have them always in our laps.
We are, as it were, their salvation.
