THE OLD AND NEW WORLD

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The old world did not want to die
But the new one had to be born.
Viaticum had to be--
As food and drink receded into hoarded shadow--
Before the waters could burst
To herald the labour for a dawn.

The new world had to be born;
With the legs of the old world pried apart
And doctors dipping fingers into her womb--
Deep breath, deep breath--
Push-- the head of the new world
Away from the belly of one so moribund.

Ha!
The groans in their multitude came
Like a horde of thunders --
The voice of the avalanche--
The wise ones listened from their homes--
The foolish ones didn't listen at all
And flooded the streets with the peril of a warm hug;

The old world lost blood like it lost sense--
The new world, sticking out it's neck,
On the verge of becoming,
Was one hardly of promise, but of prophecy;
Some of end,
Some of devils who would bear strange lights--
Others, of an era of great depressions.
The ones who hoped
For bloom, for Phoenix, were few--
Few like peace.

It was asked:
Who is it that does not see hell
With all that blood in his hands?
Has not the old world survived entirely on the marrow of its children?
Did the old world not adorn itself with a tapestry of bones?
Did it ever know the mercy of a soft kiss?

It was asked also:
Is a new, unready world, the answer?
Will the new world not be cannibal, like its mother?
Will the poor earn more coins from the emergent sands?
Will you care, when your belly drives you to blind feedership?
Will the men who weilded gods in their palms die before us?

It was never answered.