Prophetic Tears

a poem by William P. Meyers

"Lend me ten thousand eyes,
And I will fill them with prophetic tears."*
I have the curse of prophesy
I see dead bones in living flesh
I see plague of locusts in a single pair
I see floods in deserts
I see deserts where farms and forests stand.

Change is all, and all is change.
I can scream the future
But few will hear:
A quiet in the white and gray artifacts
Lining a Potomac red as blood
The last dog barking his hungry complaint;
Tens of millions of handguns and rifles
Littering the land
Near the corpses they could not save;
Stars falling from blackened sky,
Widowers in rags,
Widows in slavery,
Orphans who have never seen the sun.

Before then, few will read the signs
The telling flights of song birds
The subtle shifts of tides and currants
And glazed eyes of children
Praying to graphic novel characters.

Wolves made of steel, cleaning up the homeless.
Pink slips, pink slips, pink slips,
Pink slips by the millions
Coloring the land like the poppies of Flanders,
Blazing like Buddhist prayer wheels
A sunset-pink dust storm sweeping away society.
Luxury goods celebrated like gods,
Gods promoted like luxury goods,
Actors and actresses playing luxury gods.

All the medicines of yesteryear
Will be recognized as poisons.

Billions beating their heads against walls:
Beating, beating, beating, beating,
Beating, beating, beating, beating,
Beating, beating, beating,
Till they can beat no more.

* Troilus and Cressida Act II Sc II lines 101-102

Copyright 2014 by William P. Meyers, all rights reserved