A Poem on the Epiphany’s Morbid Gifts: The Interregnum- Branded And Marred  

This is a poem that I wrote a few years ago and  is part of my unpublished collection “Avatars on the Borderlands”.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.