The television screen displays
a demagogue, with bloody hands,
demanding flesh; a nation, crazed
with twisted zeal, that owns a bomb;
the voice of reason, gentle words
of sanity drowned out by guns
whose bullets scream: I will be heard.
I will be heard: a billion tongues
shout out, a billion keyboards spit
pollution in a billion ears
until that billion multiplies.
What room is there for reason when
unreason is normality?
What place is there for hope or love?
Here amidst chaos, love remains
the seed that hopeful men must plant
to cultivate in fertile soil,
if fertile soil may yet be found.
There, it may germinate and bloom,
a small, resistant splash of light,
to guide us through encroaching night.
Richard Fleming
