The Population Of The Earth,2018 Poem by Daniel Brick

HOW IT GOES:
Roasted in wrath and fire,
And this o'ersized with coagulate gore,
With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus
Old grandsire Priam seeks...
For lo! his sword,
Which was declining on the milky head
Of reverend Priam, seemed in the air to stick.
Pyrrhus did nothing....
HAMLET, Act II, lines 401-404; 416-420

How are we all connected? And how tightly
does this connection bind us? Are we indeed,
in Cain's desperate words, our brother's keeper?
Is that the notion which stays the murderous hand,
arresting it in mid air, so that the knife and
and hand together fall, and come to rest
in silence. We need an answer very soon,
almost immediately, because at this moment
many hands are raised in hate, many thoughts
are pure murder, and the notion of brotherhood
is further eroded by every justification of
"a just war, " or "a preemptive strike, "
or "a war to end all wars, or that shocking
oxymoron, a war which will secure the peace.

The tasks ahead to "abolish war, " or "to agree
to disagree, " or to conceive the notion of
a global government will be achieved by evolved
human beings, themselves products of a focused
evolution, with an ethical teleology. And at this
point, our poems will become lamentations
for lost hopes or celebrations of hopes
being fulfilled. And someday, maybe as soon as
next week, I will write a poem distinguishing
wisdom and folly from each other. Will it be my last poem?

HOW IT ENDS:
... So after Pyrrhus' pause,
Aroused vengeance sets him new awork...
Pyrrhus' bleeding sword now falls on Priam.
HAMLET Act II, lines 427-428; 431-432