Friday
“Why should I mourn
the vanished power of the usual reign?”
-Elliot
Ash Wednesday
I have grieved the growing power,
the vanishing grace,
the stateless state,
of the victims of bombs.
I have mourned at the empty hole,
and the flaccid face
of all that I knew of love one time,
covered now with rough-cut grass
that I saw one afternoon in the rain and wind.
I have cried at the sacrifice of an endless
Good Friday, taking years to steal our remaining
innocence.
It is Friday, “good” for some, an evil
repetitive day, the same as Wednesday,
or Monday, Sunday, or any other day, for others.
I have raised my arms, my voice, my soul,
at the joy of
Peace in Our Time,
Easter Sunday,
our resurrection by the saviour
with a hundred thousand broken bodies
left to rot, eventually buried, hidden,
euphemised and sanitised
so we can rise like
angels in the great white raiment
of innocence.
It was Ash Wednesday this week in Beirut,
after Totaling Tuesday
that boomed louder than ears can stand,
creating a final wilderness out of a worn grandeur,
and raining ash, clouds of dust and chunks of debris
on the heads of innocents for whom
there is no tomorrow.
We are the empty ones, the hollowed out souls
for whom there was no resurrection,
just an illusion,
a hope we can no more hold
than the wind that blows our dust away.
Onward, Christian soldiers!
Muslim soldiers!
any soldiers!
Onward, the unshaven, beaten, defeated soldiers
who have won the victory for the elegant
men and women to
discuss the latest literature,
decry the latest politics,
play the latest music,
drink the finest chardonnay,
and assuage the terror of mortality.
Why should I mourn the vanishing power
of the usual reign that profits
from its claw-like grip, created
one long Bad Friday,
and stole Resurrection Sunday?
Why should I celebrate the long history
of the cultural exemplars, the exceptional who are merely
vultures, vampires turned zombies
voraciously consuming the innocent
to preserve and pursue their pleasures?
I will celebrate the vanishing power
and mourn the dying grace,
sit by the rivers of Babylon and weep
with ash on my head
and a hollowed out soul
in this vortex of the Eternal Friday.
