by Ian Scott Wilson
(Dedicated to Doctor Harris)
— “Wake now, forgetful, dreaming soul!”
I see the wreck and ruin of some fever dream.
Though suited for the chilly darkness is the mole,
Mankind cannot be in land where the sun won’t gleam.
Only slime and evil flood the charred cityscape,
Instead of old, gentle waters and happy bird song.
Bands of bastards run wild; our people have been raped!
I ask my neighbor this: “How can values be wrong?”
He says to me: “You know nothing of what is right.
This land was our land and will be again,
But it is your fault when we lost before the fight.
You see conscience a cultural curio, everyone a friend.
It is not so complex and grey, I think I know.
The world is black and white for much of the time.
Black and brittle like our new falling snow,
And empty-white like the book of mankind.
You must decide and claim firmer ground.
You may be wrong, but still you took a stand
For what you thought, studied, and found.
I tell you this: the guilty ones have clean, neutral hands.
No, no great pleasure, love for right, or Edenic lands can be found
When you think that you see the silver lining in a mushroom cloud.”
Educated as I am, I know my neighbor to be wrong.
Pleasure is granted when there is no fight to have.
It doesn’t matter even if all the good men are gone.
It’s not better to fight; I’d rather be a slave in Bedlam.
