EUGENE SKEEF

there is a huge hole
in the middle of the mahogany forest
that was ravaged
to provide the wood
to build the large tables
for war cabinets to gather

this raw material feeds their gluttony
as dealers and traders
in the commodification of our blood

will that with time the gaping hole
may fill with the bones
of purveyors of death
and prompt the growth
of a new forest of softwoods
that will sway to the tender cadences
of a lasting peace

the silence after any war
is never that of peace
but a sign of the hollowness
of all promises
that come wrapped
in the shroud of death's
frayed flag of conquest

when the dust has settled
it is only the beginning
of the learning that has been
injected with new life
through the restoration
of the innocence of the departed

the power of death
empties all thought
and restores innocence to the departed
regardless of their actions

witness how lilies
can dominate a field
and make it seem cleansed
of all guilt in nature's harmonious obligation

humanity has been plagued
by crusades for millennia

dogmatic doctrinal crews still raid
the yielding lands of the meek
to fabricate their own paradise on earth
while they trick the confidence
of their converts into believing
that they will find their paradise
after they are buried in the infertile earth
that has inherited them incomplete

these days news crews cover every aid cruise
along a crisscross of devastation
across fractured lines of fragile division

but every neuron of knowledge
possesses the entire memory genome
mapped in each fragment of desolation
and this makes the silence
of the disappeared incendiary

let us use our belief in ourselves
to reactivate the missing link
between the adjacent parts
of our scattered brains..

a chronicle of a tempered melody of hair
floating from the luxuriant scalp of africa
sent a scented waft of ancient song
along the imperial corridors of wanton whispers
to ascend the wary coastline
of the basin where many had washed 
their weary heads to cleanse the guile
of time’s intolerable burden on their dreams

but in the novitiate’s vessel of ablutions
no fragrant essence or nourishing tonic
can wash out the indelible stain
of the turbulent mediterranean memories
yet still we must be open to the visitation
of the wrath of our ill crafted angels
wearing prefabricated wings fashioned 
from the ashes of ptolmaic platitudes

a child surfaced from the bottom of the sea
where she had been rummaging among the wreckage
she sang of how the truth about the curved walls
of the earth’s sole temple had eluded
even the wisest among the people who had
embarked on the endeavour of purifying themselves
in all the time that could be remembered
by those who journeyed far from their mother’s home

she told the gathered creatures who also knew 
that she was really an aquatic epiphany of the dome
that the curved walls of their shared temple
encircled them all as far as they could imagine
and that even as the walls connected heaven to earth 
the seams never closed but remained forever welcomingly open

and those who listened deeply learned that
you can never erase a people like a bad equation 
that identity and belonging are not disposable quotients
nor do human rights belong on a white board
that you can wipe ethnically clean with a cloth
cut from confiscated flags of freedom

there is no disinfectant that can remove 
the bacteria proliferating in your demonic brain
no amount of sanitising your deceptive ploys
will make your churned lies more palatable

the child looked up at the endless ceiling of the dome
with light emanating from where her eyes would have been
and she saw infinitely long threads of coloured silk
flowing from all directions to converge at the loom
between the dexterous hands of another child 
who sat and rhythmically blended the threads
into a magnificently colourful tapestry of geometric shapes
and the emerging harmonious patterns danced 
to the simply beautiful intricate rhythms