Too Soon to Tell
by Tony Thomas.
And when the waters of catastrophe
Had passed out of mind into history,
A mighty hunter came down from the hills
And laid down laws to cure the people’s ills.
On the plain of Shinar, beneath the sand,
Lie ruins, testament to Nimrod’s command,
A once proud ziggurat, symbol of his power,
Reared up to Heaven invincible, a tower.
A mangy dog has no good progeny,
However exalted his father might be,
And so foul rulers can’t give birth to fair,
Leaving the roof of state in disrepair.
A crazed king grew feathers in his hair
And grovelling in the dirt in his despair
Scratched and tore up the grass with taloned
feet,
The only thing that he found fit to eat.
The tyrant’s boot strides over many lands,
Stamping its iron message in the sands.
For every action an opposite one,
Makes the oppressor pay for what he’s done.
On an isle bought for a bucket of beads,
The teeming hordes of toilers daily stream,
Ants trapped in an intoxicating dream,
Living their hard or comfortable lives,
Expecting safe return to loving wives,
Or striving without hope to meet their needs.
What signs foretold the coming of the beast,
Fiery harbinger of revengeful hate,
An unwelcome guest at Belshazzar’s feast,
Crashed down burning into Heaven’s gate?
Zion’s warring state gives the world no rest:
Fanatics rend the eagle’s double nest.
A crippling blow to Empire’s bloody reign,
Souls cast down into oblivion and pain,
Dissolved within a cloud of burning gas,
Mangled forms mingled in a shroud of dust
With a billion glittering stars of glass.
The lair of Mammon’s greedy boom is bust.
Some say it is too soon to question why
The ziggurat has fallen from the sky.
But not too soon to lay the blame, and exact
Revenge for the hole in the city’s heart.
Panicked leaders draw up a deadly pact,
Flames fanned by propaganda’s lying art,
A fearful symmetry of mutual hate:
Abandon hope, the motto on Hell’s Gate.
Grey men gathering in white halls of state
Plan revenge and will not evaluate
The underlying cause of their malaise;
Their windy words are filled with blame and
praise.
Calling for a deadly tit-for-tat to
Pay back death for the fallen ziggurat,
They preach tyranny in freedom’s name,
And see no evil in their hearts or blame.
A second Nebo stalks the corridors,
A man with sneering lip and reptile heart,
Wrapped up in the Old Glory of new wars,
He thinks himself a king, a man apart.
Surrounded by a host of sycophants,
From the Grand Old Party of hired tyrants,
He is schooled in the arts of calumny
And gladly takes the lead in infamy.
No need to lead him by the nose to drink,
This purblind jackass will never shrink
From Babylon’s trough of misery and death,
Where he slakes his thirst for power and
wealth.
And many others come to sup there too,
Making no distinction between false and true,
This lying clique let loose the hounds of
war
To feed among the pools of oil and gore.
When may we hope the time will come to pass,
When, forced down to eat the grass, they
partake
Of hubris and common humanity,
Forsaking war and evil policy?
When will we be Free of gods
and creeds,
Of politicians and their evil deeds,
Of plutocrats with insatiable greeds,
And the cringing rabble of broken reeds?
These questions have been asked before
Whenever evil men bring us to war.
Which is more baneful, the rule of God or
man?
It’s for you to give the answer, if you can.
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