Cirenor

The Next One

In this limp, disaffected, party´s over, of our post-modern era,
It´s as though colours themselves are losing their depth and vibrancy.
A chromatic autumn, in which the leaves of the tree of colour,
Are falling and drying to the sepia monotones,
Of an age we told ourselves had gone forever,
But had never really departed.

I can now, at last, see too easily,
The unlikely moustaches and rod stiffened movements,
Transposed to the faces and limbs of the people I see,
On the streets of my own, suddenly, unmodern day.

No age ever really departs.
The ghosts of bygone are queued in endless circles,
Waiting their turn to puppet the living through their time grooved cycles
Of hate, then remorse and idiot pride,
And then bright, green forgetfulness,
When a new palette of colours will spring forth,
For a while, for the eyes of gentler children.

But today, it seems, the streets are murmuring for war,
Quietly as yet. But the hush has grown to a murmur.
The children read the burning glyphs, on the walls,
That we dreaming elders turn away from.

The children arm themselves,
Stabbing and slicing each other,
With suitably arbitrary, but ironclad, rules of engagement.
The dreaming elders will not see what this means.

It could be next Thursday, or maybe next year.
Two, three of five years, down the line, hence. Who might say?
It can come so suddenly when it does come.
As certain as death though, its grinning brother, it is on its way.
One day the murmur will rise to a shout, then a roar,
The peoples will rise in their masses, screaming for War!
And whenever it is, the donkeys they follow will blithely assure,
That they´ll be home for Christmas,
As ever before.

And so, the Next One,
That so many wanted to believe could not happen.
But, that so many, secretly, even to themselves, did.
That only the most earnest of men, the readers of entrails,
With the darkest of foresight, predicted, unlistened.
It´s hour come round at last, will, be assured, come to pass.