The Terrorist.
"Awake, awake", the watchman cried, "fire, fire",
As out into the night he stared, with anxious eyes.
His colleague turned to him with calming voice, bade
"Hush, within they sleep, and haply dream of profit and of love.
"You scare me, Friend. If they woke now and, heeding well your words,
Switched off the plant, and started for the hills,
Would we not find ourselves sans shelter and sans food,
Sharing the empty desert with five billion hungry mouths.
"To fill the lonely hours of darkness, while you watching wait,
Perhaps you could, as homework for our Upper House,
Devise a scheme to shrink twofold in twenty years our number and our wealth;
Our cars, our appetites, our bodies –– each step being made by choice."
Ian West, Banbury, July 2025
No comments:
Post a Comment