When the stones in our hearts don’t melt
When love dies, everybody cries
And we dance the last waltz of the world
As the shadows get longer, every day
The chill sets in, creeps into the bones
Rumbles around in our memories
Like curses in a cathedral of unbelievers
Recollections not in tranquility
But with a twang and a screech
That lingers painfully in our brains
Like the sound of an untuned guitar
Played by the cold hands of an old rocker
Who peers into the shadows
Sees a young boy sitting on a wood pile
Screaming “I’m not going to school today”
As his mother stands by helplessly
Praying and hoping that he will be made well
Please have mercy on the children
Oh, please have mercy on the children
The guitarist looks deeper into the gloom
Sees grey figures shrouded in blankets
Moving about in confusion, gazing around
As if searching for a stairway to heaven
Which exists only in their fevered imaginations
Slippery delusions that bring no satisfaction
Despite the sermons that pollute the air
Swirling about like spiritual dust storms
Obscuring any hope of finding truth
In the distance he hears the sad, wistful tones
Of an organ playing Amazing Grace
Wishing…hoping for the Great Fisherman
Who never comes except in promises of salvation
As hungry multitudes chew on spiritual cud
Which gives them no sustenance
Deeper in the shadows he sees old women
With gray faces staggering in bread lines
Their eyes dead to any hope of relief
From the sorrows of living in a world
In which theories trump reality
And failed five-year plans are condemned
To the dust heap of history, like fallout
From nuclear tests in the scorched Nevada desert
Then he sees massed armies marching
To planned destinies of domination
The soldiers’ eyes are glazed over with aggression
While overhead the roaring bombers
Shatter the stillness, expose the fear
That engulfs the mere mortals who cower
Hopelessly in basements, praying to the same god
That blessed the troops before sending them to war
“I am a pacifist,” he cries, but nobody wants to hear
His declarations against violence and war
He invokes Tolstoy, Ghandi, and his ancestors
Who burned their guns in 1895, who suffered
Cossack whips and long marches into Siberian exile
Nobody listens in the pervasive silence
Engulfing the world as if in anticipation
Of who will drop the next bomb, who will kill
The next innocent child, who will denude the earth
Of its dignity and decency, leaving it gasping
For air
Then huge factories loom large before him
Monstrous polluters feeding the ravenous
Appetites of consumers fighting each other
For the latest gadgets they don’t need
Suddenly great cries shatter the stillness
Like barkers at a carnival of fools
Who worship the gods of Madison Avenue
STEP RIGHT UP BARGAINS GALORE
GET THEM WHILE THEY LAST
BLOWOUT SALE EVERYTHING MUST GO
BLACK FRIDAY MIDNIGHT MADNESS
DOOR CRASHER SPECIALS NO PUSHING
NO INTEREST ON APPROVED CREDIT
SENIORS’ DISCOUNTS
BUY ONE GET ONE FREE
CASE LOT SALE STOCK UP NOW
NO LIMITS ON TOILET PAPER
NO REASONABLE OFFER REFUSED
The old guitarist sees greedy hordes streaming
To shopping mall meccas of mass consumption
And he sees the whole broken world
Going broke
In despair he smashes his guitar on the pavement
Like a mad rocker in a drugged frenzy
Stomps on its entrails as if to smash
The head of a venomous past
Then, deep in the grey mist he sees colour
A flower, a beautiful giant yellow sunflower
Searching for the sun
And he falls to his knees
And he looks upwards to where he thinks heaven can be found And he starts to pray
Please have mercy on the children
Oh, please have mercy on the children

Allan Markin November 9, 2021