My Calmly Roaring 20s

Poem Four: Discord

When you hear the fatal note, expect a rain of anxious feet to follow.

The voices of the past are revived and restored and re-martyred,

And their new brothers flag the message that they were buried with.

The politics of culture grip their governors by the wrist,

Threatening, pleading, gesturing toward a demand that is embodied but does not live.

As organic a cause it is, lightening has not raised it from potential.

A legislation can change the mandate of the land but cannot root itself into the conscious hearts

of citizens.

Saviors and defenders of a world only they have ever seen,

the brotherhood of proud history bites with contempt

at a world that has been lost but is owned by no one.

This is the limbo that patriots and cynics share, a land confused by its composition,

waiting for the refrain.

With the peak of a new decade, as we stand at the high hills,

Battered by the torments of the gulf,

ruined by neglect,

now do you realize this was not a lone stroke of cacophony?

A symphony of brazen and muted mourning buzzed as civilization settled,

yet the staccato that falls sharp to your ears frightens you,

as though the music of discontent had been left playing and someone forgot to turn it off. 

~RaspberryRiddle