I have a hole in my heart
where my conscience should be.
Severed are the nerves
connecting me with humanity;
still my tongue, my Samson eye
seared, blinded, unable to see
that once Eden on earth,
my cradle home, my country
has been made derelict, boughless
but for a solitary Tree -
the Tree of Forbidden Knowledge,
the Forbidden knowledge of a technology
that like Promethean fire
should have benefited mortals like me,
not isolated me from Mankind.
I may have arrested my foe, but locking
his handcuffs to my nuclear button,
shackled my own wrist to his destiny.
Whichever one of us should strike first,
will strike both. MAD or Double Indemnity?
Let not holes in the heart
become holes in the ground,
Eden-sized graves for the Adams and Eves
in you and in me.
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Published in DAWN Magazine, 9 June 2003, and reprinted in WHEN BUSH COMES TO SHOVE & OTHER WRITINGS (2006). |
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