“Cedant arma togae, concedant laurea laudi.”
- Marcus Tullius Cicero from De Officiis
1. THE REST NOWHERE
Let’s watch frecks turn up at every conference
hall
to know what ‘war on terrorism’ brings in the
offing
and crash as cars often do on the hilly passageways.
Confreres scream: “Eclipse first, the rest
nowhere.
“Sob, heavy world: Roma locuta est; causa
finita est.
Oh, our leaders are pimps whose love’s far to
seek.
Forced to find the stench off hyenas pretty
blamy,
and believe each day that has dawned is our
last,
“yet we won’t cut our conscience to fit their
rage,
right now more ready to not stop dead in our
track
than see the whole lot of Pascal’s reeds in
scare:
arsonist networks, threats, explosives, anthrax
etc.”
Montroses come from the prison to the scaffold.
2. THE FINEST FARCE
Sir, I think the weather of diplomacy fines up!
invaders talk of liberty to be given to the
invaded;
and this ceaseless talk smells sour, prove that
I lie.
Yes, on the battlefields is this farce being
staged.
Let me talk to a chap who’s still at the
crossroads:
back home, first change into trousers and the
vest,
splash your face with water and switch on your
TV;
now tell me, dear fellow, if you see on the
screen
anything but skeletons still crusty with burnt
flesh
or buildings broken like sandcastles on the
beach
or overcast skies rent by long cries in the
gloom.
Is this gallant Mr. Perdition living with Miss
Chief?
I just sympathize with those civilians who
scream:
there is no neutral thing like blood, nor any
trick as war;
yes, for the riches of some greedy countries we
morons suffer,
and agree that the Strong shall thrive and the
Weak perish,
all invaders can’t ever counteract our stark
grief by grace;
when will we be brisk about the life cropping
out of the ruins?
Tell why we are thrust into this world for the
jaws of misery
which we can’t gratify with anything else but
ourselves?
By Gothic Horror Harbour I sat down and wept:
I’d got nothing but photographs of the
catastrophe
(the octopus from whose tentacles none escapes)
and of the lunatics wallowing on burning tyres.
Days glide swiftly on as dirty worms in a
drain,
their swiftness none counteracts by glaring
eyes.
Cry, my beloved heart: without tears you can’t
have
grace more longed for than this dose of
naivety.
The butchers have taken charge of the
Sanatoria.
3. THE EMBALMERS’ ART
Centuries are nothing but chronicles of
wreckage.
Asked by German soldiers in his Parisian studio
if he painted the bomb-shattered city in Spain,
Picasso replied, ‘No, you humble Germans did.’
Now get ready to flee your city and never
return:
somewhere in an art-gallery you’ll see pictures
of it
and nightmares cropping out of the hoary ruins.
All artists feast on the remains of nightmares.
Things have changed since I burst out of
infancy
to see nightmares bloom like flowers on the
ruins.
Cluster bombs are no drizzle on the grassfield,
Rather chronicles of suffering and embalmers’
art.
Each negative value has its price in positive
terms.
Strange that the fraudheads speak the nicest
words,
vows with so much spirit, swears with so much
grace.
I am glad of a triumph of all the embalmers’
art!
Last summer I heard whispers of further
wreckage,
I can’t laugh away the whispers sharp as
needles,
nor comfortably stay in my den where TV shows
how the whispers come true, piling on the
agony.
Yes, everywhere I see the frenzy of nightmares.
Lamps go out, and generation to corruption
turns;
Do you think of us as certified insane to agree
that the Strong shall thrive and the Weak
perish?
You know why artists grope for solid
nightmares;
what’s the good of nightmares if I ain’t with
them?
I keep writing on the turmoil in our blaring
bush,
hope that I will succeed by the sweat of my
brow.
Is it Progress if I think art and war are
inseparable?
Sofiul Azam