This is a poem that I wrote a few years ago and is part of my unpublished collection “Avatars on the Borderlands”. I am publishing it now because of its relevance today, especially as a meditation on the January 6 attempted coup at the Capitol, in Washington DC.
The Interregnum- Branded And Marred
The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying
and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum
a great variety of morbid symptoms appear
– Antonio Gramsci
Not the time in between kings
or queens
Hardly the void filled
with palace intrigues
−an uncertain succession
branded and marred
by poison or knife
In this in between time-the Interregnum
the Dow raises monsters
from the grave
miracles wander aflopping
enraged Lazari
emerge screaming from burial
their stinking bandages
replicating
in the petri dish of history
Gone are the curtained days
of theater and performance
- Tragedy, the first time
- Farce, the second
- Fake news, the third
now grotesque carnivals
forever on the loose
gallivant careening
on roads and sea lanes
throughout the earth
and into space
Alas “the morbid symptom”
for which there is no cure:
the new that cannot be born
and the old that cannot die
And from this sunken place
we can only rely
on the pity of wolves
as the deserts glaze
and the glaciers fry.
Pina Piccolo, 2018
Cover image: Photo by Samuel Busetto from Pixabay.
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