JOHNMICHAEL SIMON POETRY

Again the iron fist descends

dogs of savagery roar dust

again boys are called from ploughs

husbands and lovers from their beds

 

Once more the stockades of our settlements

are manned, cauldrons of boiling oil

wait on battlements, as cavalcades

converge surrounding hills to plunge,

plunder, steel glint, thunder gutting all

 

Across creased maps of centuries, borders

have changed for scores of years as lust,

tithe, man’s appetite for rights and titles

stand unvanquished.  Now lashes on our

backs descend again ‘til our resistance bleeds

 

Emperors, generals, their short tenure over

own bodies ignored, endeavor to stamp

permanence across these dwelling places whose

walls have been rebuilt and breached so often

 

While underground the planet boils in anger

warmed ice melts, dams break, glaciers topple

as with a final bellow of broken dykes

armies of water reclaim all territory, rock, fence,

steel border posts all swept away

 

On the waves another Ark now floats

another rainbow, lessons long forgotten, gloats