Toward the eastern gate of this walled-in life

A rain advances with the urgency of men

Marching ever prouder, ever louder,

In order to conceal injustice

With a crescendo of flags and uniforms.

Thus the rain advances, with its silver

Uniformity, its blanketing cloud

Of war, its ubiquitous watery

Domination, its soldier-drops

That pounce on the soil

With the impact of a blinding mission.

And the city of this life, ablaze with city-lights,

Grips its collective weaponry with the fury

Of impending defeat, the rage of intrusion,

And the sorrow of death.

Centuries of armament have given the citizens

Hearts of stoic anger, eyes narrow as turrets,

Hands open only to triggers,

Torsos accustomed to crouching,

Feet tattooed with the pigment

Of trampled flowers.

But this is not a city of fear.

Fear blew up like an enemy

Beneath a grenade, and now

Only a crater of fear remains

In the citizen’s heart,–

The fantasy heart that glows cold

And distant like the moon.

Men have banded together–

Men that, since the dawning of the city,

Have hated and fought one another

With the desperation of a prisoner

Trying to escape his prison and his sin.

Now a massive army marches behind the fabled gate.

Commanders speak of peace after this final stand

With such eloquence that the soldiers

Sit, and their guns begin to tremble.

Prayers are offered towards the heavens.

The sky chokes with pleas for justice,

For peace, for victory.

Then a prayer fell from the sky

Like a warning of rejection.

And suddenly, a millennia of philosophy,

Religion, debate, politics,

Hatred, ideas, intent, poetry,

Began to fall twice as violently

As when it left

The mouths and bodies of the dead.

The sky had been spying:

Clouds caught the curses,

Stars watched the plotting,

Suns illuminated the torment,

And now the rain hurled

All of it back at the city.

Nothing escapes itself.

Of course, the rain swiftly

Overwhelmed the walls,

Submerged the soldiers,

Filled the silence of onlookers,

Absorbed the hidden and fleeing,

Flooded the lowly and sick,

Stranded the high and mighty,

And swamped the Insitutions.

This victory was not celebrated.

One could hardly call it victory.

The rain had orders only to rebuild.

Now a hyacinth grows from the heart

Of a dead leader,

And the roots spread through his body

And the bodies of every former citizen.

Monday, April 14th, 2003