POLITICAL Poem: There Are Times, by Clark Elder Morrow

There are times it seems that were I right
And were I whole
I would mourn with tears
The death of every day.

Mourn mourn mourn the death
Fiery disastrous death
Of every dawnbred day – day
That loved and wished and surged
And wondered like a woman
But teeters on its knees, now, wrapped in flames,
Dying like an immolating Buddhist monk.

There are times it seems that were I right
And were I whole
I would mourn with tears
Every microbe’s death.

Mourn mourn mourn the deaths
Ignored unnoticed longgone deaths
Of unlamented lives that like
All lives are likeable in
Their loathsome little ways, encrusted with
Corruption like a mayor
Who’s touching in his pitiableness.

There are times it seems that were I right
And were I whole
I would mourn with tears
The death of each romance.

Mourn mourn mourn the death
Of every little epoch born
Of a couple words and winks:

Every little unwept opera, all
Sagas too small to be sold, all those
Aroused laps and loyalties all
Dying every day like birds
Stomped on and fluttering less and less.

There are times it seems that were I right
And were I whole
I would mourn with tears
The death of our community.

Mourn mourn mourn the death
Flagrant wrenching pleading death
Of all we’ve built and bred –
The cozy wine-dispensing shops
Where once was unaffected and
Affectionate talk of Haydn
and of all-too-human Hume.
Were I right. Were I whole