Photo by JR Korpa
The Consolation of Cicero
Richard Helmling
the nice family with the rusted rain gutters
and the charming creeper vines along the brickwork
singled out
their Muslim neighbors
for the Serb militia
(who would take the men, lock them up,
tell them stories about raping their women and children)
now who will they borrow the ladder from
each spring
the gutters clogging
with the fast-falling foliage of the dead
and here, now, the bloated old buffoon we used to laugh at
gathers an unthinking army around him
chanting
this is how it happened there
this is my world ending
everything I meant to bequeath to you, my children
I thought I served reason
served a world with purpose
direction
the long arc of history
bending toward justice
now
I do not know what it is I served
(I don’t want to despair, to surrender, but)
I suspect, nothing
Now
pension only a few years out
the ruffles of my long career
mostly smoothed
and the height of my powers
staid
but well behind
(possessed of some measure of dignity, perhaps)
I am Cicero
exile
couched in gilded irrelevance
the world I would have made
gone
now I must sing swan songs
to the almost
to the nearly
and watch from the sidelines
as the empire crumbles
folds in on itself into nothing
like closing the pop-up books I used to read you
when you were so little
and the future was all breaking barriers,
and upward sloping curves,
and tachyon beams of progress
and promise
now
these powermongers
these movers and schemers
and their idiot king
you know them
we all know them
the ones on the news
with the billions
still digging for gold
between the sidewalk cracks of our neighborhoods
the ones flushing out the last drops of oil
from the sticky, black bosom of the earth
they’re using their broad, lily-white thumbs to thump the rule book
the one they rewrite every day
Them
they walk on a rotten covering
and they know it’s going to crack
everyone knows
it can’t last forever
but forever is hard to wrap your brain around
hard to quantify on the balance sheets
they’d burn down the world
if they thought they could sell off the ash
their real world
with all its complications and compromises
is now
and only now
so the arrows fly unseen at noonday
and they will all pay
But it’s not really about them
is it
we’re there, too
the crow’s-feet about our eyes
worry we’ve internalized
so that it’s less tattoo and more coloring in the meat
we’re following them
putting our feet just where they do
their sins
ours, just a few steps behind
complicit
and from it all, we have wrought
only
the ashen stink of failure
so
reeking of it
we trudge on
entitled and unbowed
And the kids are watching
and booing
that they hope that we die
and that our deaths will come soon
and, really, why shouldn’t they
time to fess up
admit
we never knew what we were doing
and I’m sorry
sorry, my little ones
I meant to give you a better world
but the truth is, I never made it mine at all
Quickly, quickly now
snatch the keys to the kingdom
(no, we won’t give them to you willingly, but we’re slow and doltish–
you can take them)
while we’re distracted, while we’re wiping all that sweat off our brows
that we’re so proud of
(but, really, it’s just the heat)
you can do it
someone has to
someday
do better
Richard Helmling
the nice family with the rusted rain gutters
and the charming creeper vines along the brickwork
singled out
their Muslim neighbors
for the Serb militia
(who would take the men, lock them up,
tell them stories about raping their women and children)
now who will they borrow the ladder from
each spring
the gutters clogging
with the fast-falling foliage of the dead
and here, now, the bloated old buffoon we used to laugh at
gathers an unthinking army around him
chanting
this is how it happened there
this is my world ending
everything I meant to bequeath to you, my children
I thought I served reason
served a world with purpose
direction
the long arc of history
bending toward justice
now
I do not know what it is I served
(I don’t want to despair, to surrender, but)
I suspect, nothing
Now
pension only a few years out
the ruffles of my long career
mostly smoothed
and the height of my powers
staid
but well behind
(possessed of some measure of dignity, perhaps)
I am Cicero
exile
couched in gilded irrelevance
the world I would have made
gone
now I must sing swan songs
to the almost
to the nearly
and watch from the sidelines
as the empire crumbles
folds in on itself into nothing
like closing the pop-up books I used to read you
when you were so little
and the future was all breaking barriers,
and upward sloping curves,
and tachyon beams of progress
and promise
now
these powermongers
these movers and schemers
and their idiot king
you know them
we all know them
the ones on the news
with the billions
still digging for gold
between the sidewalk cracks of our neighborhoods
the ones flushing out the last drops of oil
from the sticky, black bosom of the earth
they’re using their broad, lily-white thumbs to thump the rule book
the one they rewrite every day
Them
they walk on a rotten covering
and they know it’s going to crack
everyone knows
it can’t last forever
but forever is hard to wrap your brain around
hard to quantify on the balance sheets
they’d burn down the world
if they thought they could sell off the ash
their real world
with all its complications and compromises
is now
and only now
so the arrows fly unseen at noonday
and they will all pay
But it’s not really about them
is it
we’re there, too
the crow’s-feet about our eyes
worry we’ve internalized
so that it’s less tattoo and more coloring in the meat
we’re following them
putting our feet just where they do
their sins
ours, just a few steps behind
complicit
and from it all, we have wrought
only
the ashen stink of failure
so
reeking of it
we trudge on
entitled and unbowed
And the kids are watching
and booing
that they hope that we die
and that our deaths will come soon
and, really, why shouldn’t they
time to fess up
admit
we never knew what we were doing
and I’m sorry
sorry, my little ones
I meant to give you a better world
but the truth is, I never made it mine at all
Quickly, quickly now
snatch the keys to the kingdom
(no, we won’t give them to you willingly, but we’re slow and doltish–
you can take them)
while we’re distracted, while we’re wiping all that sweat off our brows
that we’re so proud of
(but, really, it’s just the heat)
you can do it
someone has to
someday
do better