Look around you, man of war, see souls perish by the score,
cannon fodder, more fall, more, decimating human store
till winner’s whim armed peace restore.
Look around you, man of peace, we the multitudes increase –
until Nature’s sword, disease, decrees disordered growth should cease
and then the hungry hordes decrease.
Man at peace, or Man at war, both bring werewolf to the door,
but once defeated, this is sure, the primacy one would enstore
the other steals when wheel keels o’er.
One would appease, the other, he’s wrathful, ruthless as Ares.
One incarnates Socrates immortalized in Grecian frieze,
the other – mean mentalities.
Is existence one great tease? Where’s the wood and where the trees?
Coded causal mysteries turn friends into enemies,
self-defeating fallacies, ambitions and activities,
one part frees, one part freeze, emotions, efforts, Fate's claws seize.
All spins between two poles and these care less for Man than for his fleas.
Fly Tale It Is - Flytalities - Vitalities - Fatal I Tease - Fatal It Ease - Fatalities
(31 March 1977 revised 11 April 2010)
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem