Illusion – Homan Square and Worse
©May 15, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
How can I smile?
The sun shines muted and somber
The children’s cries of glee on the fields
Seems removed, like sounds heard through glass.
The sky bends, an old woman with a bundle,
Inverted, back broken, over an earth which
Spins only from duty and habit.
How can I smile?
I read things, things about blood
And things about pain
And about cruelty, torture
And rape.
In Chicago’s Homan Square,
A Black Site, mini-Guantanamo,
Men in blue, with blood-lust
And guns ready at the hip
Explode with hatred, and
Engorged with power,
Devastate a life, far from
Prying eyes or help.
And I read, and my gorge rises
And a canyon opens below.
How can I smile?
You want to tell me that we
Are creatures of compassion
And kindness, and love?
You want to tell me that we care
For our fellow brothers and sisters,
That we are merciful?
You want to tell me that
All is not lost, that
Goodness still exists?
Very well! I’ll go along
With your fiction.
I have no choice, but
To die, here, now.
I cannot do that.
Duty compels, and love,
Family ties me with silken threads.
And this body that
Still thirsts, still hungers,
Still rejoices in air and light
And food and music
And words and touch …
These tug at me.
If it’s fiction, and all existence
Narrows down to that perfect point
Where death pinches out life,
I don’t care.
This fiction prods me on.
This is all maya.
And though I laugh in your face,
And my heart is a fist, and the fist,
Is formed from blood and tears,
And I lie in a dark room,
Somewhere
Far away,
Shaking,
Broken,
I will create this fiction.
For I have no choice.
Out of fiction
A genie emerges,
Arms folded, forbidding,
Good, powerful:
Could this be Truth?
I will ask three things of it, then.
And if it doesn’t give,
I will force it back into
Its metallic, negative space.
And spin a wilder
Brighter, kinder fiction,
Which will coalesce,
Transforming this world
Into something that might
Nearly resemble Truth.
I could live with that —
Perhaps.
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