Rhythm Macabre
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Part of The Carolinian
- Title
- Rhythm Macabre
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- The contemplation of the horrid or sordid or disgusting, by an artist is a necessary and negative aspect of the impulse toward the pursuit of beauty. — T. S. ELIOT by RICARDO I. PATALINJU 1. The heart of man Is grieving still And madness reigns Supreme The wish to crush And the wish to kill Weaken life's Vigorous pulsation! The blinding Emptiness of souls The wound that Time Has made Turn men into lost Ghouls Disturbing the skies With frustrated cries! 2. In this our place Brutal passions rule As we drink blood In tattered mugs The tortured earth Produces crops no more Our violence attuned To the violence Of a boar! The spectred flight Of the centuries Claws our nights With cruel fingers Tears dreams With maniacal delight Leading us all To deepening gloom! 3. Lost we are in the sea Of bloody confusions And our solar system Is dying soon The gyrations Of revolutions Whirl, whirl forward Leaving behind The whipering nations. The miasma from Time's leprosy Wrecks The atmosphere Of doom The world unbalanced The mind dizzy Wounding wound In death's dominion. 4. Amidst the ruins Of inexplicable years The eyes of man Bloodshot and red Arms clutching Phantom crosses Hurling heaven With senseless Supplications. The vibrating atoms Will sound off soon And Time will stop Forever The speed of light We measured before Will nail our bodies On tattered walls. 5. For the fruit Of the seed Einstein had planted Is now in the hands Of Cain And we are forever Haunted As we shed Tears like rain. THE CAROLINIAN Listen! Our desolate fields Proclaim The coming harvest Of corpses Oh, the dreams We nursed are maimed And selfish wishes Are turning into ashes! 6. The light that guided Our footsteps once Is gone and lost In our world decaying Nothing is left There's no remembrance Of beautiful summers Of lovely springs. The skulls Of the accusing dead Curse us to everlasting Damnation And parading before us Is the face of greed Sneering us all To speculation! 7. This is the world We have made Dark as a bottomless pit This is the world We have made Black as our conscience Gloomy as our loss. This is the world We have made Where crime Begets crime Where Time is but A succession of crimes Where evil blooms Like a flower And death Comes creeping Like a lover! January-February, 1966 Page Twenty-three
- Date
- 1966
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