Bestial History Recycling
by Odin Roark

School years found him library prone,
Glimpsing pages of barbaric times,
Centuries ago where death and executioners
Lived out their realities,
History’s training ground for ancestral inheritance.

So easy to thumb through pages,
Gaze into the pale faces described
Like their judges must have seen
If they looked.

But who sees eye to eye in such moments?

His focus rose from such pages,
Allowing forgiveness for such atrocities,
Accepting the norm of those days
To calm his senses.

Now older,
Removed from the voluminous archives of bound studies,
He sat in his favorite chair,
Held tight the newspaper,
Allowed today’s pictured headlines to sink in,
A demonic breeding he once thought was past.

As if by sacred duty
The turbaned head held steady,
His left hand with scimitar,
His right about to yank the victim’s hair,
A grip of cruelty above innocence,
Atrocity bearing down on civilized…

He glanced up at the fire needing another log,
And allowed the emptying of his sorrow,
Imagining the blood drenched sands of what he once thought
Was reserved as teachings from long ago days,
Now but festering doubt of whether civilization had advanced.

How could he think otherwise.

Then was repeatedly now,
Alive,
Hungry,
Knowing nothing of satiability,
Only the gluttonous hatred
Their twisted theosophy thrived on.

With eyes closed,
He could hear Nature’s whirling sands,
Wanting to cover this,
Bury that,
Save the mothers from it all,
From bearing yet more
Of savagery’s black over orange,
Humanity’s unanswered shame
Of glittering blades made dull,
With death’s crusted blood,
Inciting appetites to sharpen once more,
To hover over slumped heads,
Tied hands,
Bended knees,
Final breaths.

With recycled history out of control,
When would its savagery rape his shores?