An Analysis of the Human Condition - Part I

Of Broken Dreams

I am witness to the cold, stone statue

Shedding a miraculous tear

On behalf of an estranged world,

Amidst sacred voices that speak not,

And where fear breathes its last

To the melancholy beat of nothingness.

The people made the choice, I say,

Of death and of life, drawing lots,

Unmindful of the complaints of the dead.

The expectation of a bitter kiss

And at some point thirty pieces returned,

That's all that can be hoped for,

Or would you rather the stench

Of those numbered among the living?

I am no Iscariot; I resent the comparison.

But I would happily point Him out, with a kiss;

I would, and without the mawkish guilt.

So here we are planting dainty illusions

And reaping mil-dewed despair,

Sowing calculated and thought-out hope

And harvesting withered promises

In a parched, unyielding, and bitter land,

Where the cry of the oppressed is eviscerated

And justice is merely an inconvenience.

And so continues the unabated boredom,

Without compensation for carrying crosses.

You misunderstand me, as usual;

I am no prophet of doom; it's unfashionable.

I shed the Lamb's clothing ages ago.

Or was it Sheep's clothing? Perfidious.

They are still there in my pocket,

Those dismantled dreams undreamt,

The broken remains of hope long lost

And trapped beneath a sordid gravestone

From which not even a tear can flow.

I struck it twice with a rod -- and nothing.

And yet we persist, clinging, holding on,

Etherized by a moment's ephemeral pleasure

Only to be reawakened again, all too soon, to life.

Shall we then raise misguided prayers from ashes?

Shall we build sepulchers from broken-down churches?

O lasting and abiding city, we seek thee,

There in the cold earth beneath, we seek thee,

Where nought discriminates, where exists

Neither young or old, rich nor poor,

Uncomely nor beautiful, ignorant nor wise,

The hopeful nor the hopeless, the good nor the evil,

But only the hapless race of humanity,

Who for all its faults, desires to be loved still.

And so, be kind to the dead, O Son of Man,

Awake us not, but let us sleep;

We beseech Thee, let us sleep.

By

Ric Couchman

August Twentyfirst