The Un-poem

Which play are we watching?

When you cannot fathom or name what you’re watching

When they almost killed him/but the deranged young man they picked/was a poor shot

When fate allowed Trump/to live another day/and we are asking who would do this/and is that the way

into the future of America, America the flailing, wailing empire that has turned on its own people

When we can never unsee that bloodied face/the raised fist of defiance in the face of death/and the anger, hot, heavy, pounding in our veins/what shall we do now/how can we save what is left/when nothing is right/

This may be the first act of a play/where everyone ends up dead/ and maybe a modern Brutus will make excuses or perhaps a new Antony will get up and speak the mournful words/give a name to what has happened/ to all of us

Who shall stop the red flood. Who. Was this the moment when they let loose the dogs of civil war, I ask you. Once unleashed, they will not obey. So let us not indulge in revenge fantasies.

It is time to mourn the death of America as we once knew it. It is not Trump who is in mortal danger; it is all of us living unremarkable lives. We are watching and waiting for the next Act. Hoping that this cup will pass, that we do not have to drink this bitter draught.

Speech by Mark Antony on the occasion of Caesar’s assassination, Julius Caesar, Shakespeare

O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,

That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!

Thou art the ruins of the noblest man

That ever lived in the tide of times.

Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood!

Over thy wounds now do I prophesy,—

Which, like dumb mouths, do ope their ruby lips,

To beg the voice and utterance of my tongue—

A curse shall light upon the limbs of men;

Domestic fury and fierce civil strife

Shall cumber all the parts of Italy;

Blood and destruction shall be so in use

And dreadful objects so familiar

That mothers shall but smile when they behold

Their infants quarter'd with the hands of war;

All pity choked with custom of fell deeds:

And Caesar's spirit, ranging for revenge,

With Ate by his side come hot from hell,

Shall in these confines with a monarch's voice

Cry 'Havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war;

That this foul deed shall smell above the earth

With carrion men, groaning for burial.

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