It’s a truism that messianic war mongers are willing to send others to their death. Seemingly at ease with their decisions to condemn both civilians and soldiers to an early grave. So focussed on their own destiny, they seem happy enough to throw away the destinies of so many others.
They sicken me with their rhetoric about hard decisions that have to be made, when they are insulated from the consequences.
I’m still trying to gather my thoughts and a suitable reaction to what is happening in Ukraine. But in the meantime, here’s an old poem, which appeared in Envoi and my first collection, about another leader whose hubris destroyed so many lives (hence the accompanying photograph).
Is it a good poem? I’m not certain. But if there is any day to post it on my blog, it’s today.
Alone in the High ChurchÂ
So here we are then;
you in your cell of belief,
me in my prison of doubt.
The charnel-house waits.
Vaulted and sun-dripped,
incense and incandescence
Will bend stone and air and light.
Cameras lose focus.
Kaleidoscopes slip
stained glass into bullet holes.
A puritan-wake lime-skin,
flecked with joyless hope.
So you wait for signs,
as the sun begins to set.
Shadows sheath the walls in black.
Beauty knows its place.
For Tony