Going out with a whimper
Paralyzed by the basilisk ‘s stare
As the earth revolves around itself
And the blue moon sheds its Blu-rays
Unequipped to adapt
We couldn’t focus our vision away
from Cold Wars and New World Orders
We persevered in our accustomed ways
We put our faith in reality as narration
We couldn’t get our afterlives sorted
As ancestors wrung their hands in disbelief
And the entangled whole became movies
As carnage stared us in the face
We simply apportioned blame
With a divining rod
And voiceless screams in the wilderness
As palaces and institutions shook
We turned into viewers of Games of Thrones
Sought old alliances and avoided the stares
Of magpies, creeks, mountain tops and weasels
And because things didn’t go out in a bang
We strolled with our eyes peeled to the ground
Avoiding to tread on the cracks, camels
Groping for the void in the eye of the needle.
Pina Piccolo, 20 August 2024
Cover image by Jacqueline Moen from The Smithsonian Magazine: A basilisk–a lethally poisonous monster hatched from a cock’s egg–illustrated in a mediaeval bestiary. Note the weasel gnawing at its breast; only they were impervious to basilisk venom.