For Kelly Kurt and Mike Smith
IMAGINE A HELL WITHOUT FIRE
IMAGINE THE DEVIL WITHIN US
The river of humanity run pink
Cold corpses replace Laughing Buddhas in Feng Shui stores
Killing innocents and hating others are en vogue now
And I,
an old soul in a young man's body
stand alone on a red moist salt desert
I walk over the cold, limbless, butchered bodies
that cover the skeletons of young children blown up in bombs and drone attacks
Are there entrails of babies buried here?
Livers that cannot digest anything but milk and boiled carrots?
Hearts, that were just learning to pump blood
lay now under the debris.
*
You say Hell is a place of Fire and Fury?
(Should I not laugh the most bitter laughter in Human history?)
No
This is Hell
This desert that is no longer dry
Here amidst the humid scarlet air
Here
lies the Corpse of Humanity -
buried somewhere under the heap of rotten flesh and blood
and decaying bones.
Here lies the Corpse Humanity.
Souren Mondal
30.07.2016
I have lived a safe and prosperous life as a privilege American and yet I am aware of the the immense suffering of so many contemporary people. But awareness is a pale response to deprivations others experience. Your poem strongly suggests this situation of inequality and mass suffering can only get worse, that humanity has crossed a threshold into its dark future. You cite your Old Soul in a young body that informs you of this reality of a world gripped by hellish degradation. You see us humans standing on a knife edge of disaster, clearly losing our balance, about to tip into the Abyss - and no divine intervention will save us. At least you see no evidence of it. There is integrity of purpose in this poem. Souren. I won't argue against it, even though I personally do not feel so pessimistic. I realize you are not being pessimistic, you're not being anything - You're telling the truth as you experience it. The whole, bitter truth of your experience of contemporary life. That's what I mean by integrity of experience.
Very beautiful poem. Thank you for sharing your feeling and thought provoking words with us.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
This was the most powerful protest I have ever read about war and its mindless violence in its pursuit of whatever ideology is being espoused- -usually some variation of the I am better than you schoolyard rantings. I wish you would post more of your writings here- -you have a massive talent, Souren. [I doubt it will excite you but I give this a 10]