Ode for Babylon

The poem is formal – think robes, loin clothes, or body paint – for performance: five solos by a single poet in blank verse and three choruses, rhymed with rhythmic structures. The chorus in the first part (strophe) moves east to west across the stage; the second (antistrophe), moves from west to east; the final chorus (epode) advances to front and centre. These movements might be symbolic. The first chorus is the emergence of (our/western) civilization up and out of Africa through Babylon and the Fertile Crescent across the mountains to Europe and over the Atlantic to America: the rise of capitalism and the necrophiliac psychosis of personal power. The second is the movement of consumerism, capital, goods and services (GATS) from west back to east as the emptiness of brand marketing finds complementary receptors of power in a world where the gap between rich and poor is unimaginable and unforgivable. The final chorus is a plea, and maybe an answer, or a suggestion of a way out. An eidolon is “… an image or representation of an ideal form; an apparition of some actual or imaginary entity, or of some aspect of reality”. An eidolon may also be thought of as a simulacrum. "Eidólons," is also the title of a poem by Walt Whitman that appears in the inscriptions section of Leaves of Grass.

The poet stands front and a stage left of centre stage as the chorus flows back and forth behind him/her in the first two parts and is joined by the chorus to her/his left, centrestage, for the final chorus. The poet provides a personal/political commentary on the hanging of Saddam, and basically thinks we’re stuffed.

Ode for Babylon

My prurient interest peaked, the rope was taut,
his neck was broke and nothing changed at all.

From east to west our people flowed,
from south to north we roamed
cloud and sea were mixed as foam
at the end of the road
where we stood with our backs to the ocean and time
and held the earth in our hand;
Finisterre! Finisterre! End of the land:
end of our line.
Like a fountain collapsing back on itself
we swirl in rock-cut pools
with all the arms we forged: the tools
of war and wealth
helpless as children unable to walk
caught with our backs to the wall
nothing we own can stop the fall
it’s all just talk
as the water boils and columns of armour
near: trapped like rats
in a cage, slapped like bullying brats
without the glamour
and riches naked we appear
shamed in our ignorant bliss.
All that we had was simply pissed
away in fear.

So, they strung up Saddam and let him swing
on video tape, blaming him, their man
in point position when it suited them:
the enemy of their enemy, the friend in need
of oil. Or Osama when they wanted to fight
a proxy war against the Soviet Union:
the enemy of their enemy, the friend in need
of god. The list grows long as a severed arm
punctuated with wealth, drugs and slaves
indentured to work in sweatshops, brothels and mines.
So, they strung up Saddam and let him swing
in the Babylonian dawn, as bombs go off
and the innocent die, the caravan rolls on.


Bring me my gold and my real estate
to the Armani Suite in Dubai,
Swarovski crystal and Calvin Klein,
Vuitton bags and a Hermes tie,
Porsche Design my cufflinks, with Prada
my feet are shod, deBeers
in my ring, Mont Blanc in my hand, Rolex
my wrist to match the Emir’s
first-class in-flight magazines
and onboard shopping sprees –
carbon-neutral denim couture
four hundred dollar jeans –
I offset starving peasants
to plant a couple trees.
All is fair in love and war
and I love my power well,
on every scale I’ll fight to hold
onto this living hell
where I pay you to beat your people
and your boot polish keeps me in work:
Hawk fighters: British jobs;
outside the safe-house thugs go berserk.


So, they strung up Saddam and let him swing
like the pendulum of a clock: tick, tock,
tick, tock: the twitching stops. Dead
as a nail on the Internet for all the world
to see. Lowered into a winding sheet,
slipped in the family grave by the moon’s light
to be our hypocrite memorial
of all the sins from gluttony to sloth.
Sing Jerusalem from the mountains, sing
the Haven of Peace: her lovers, her boys and girls
making love to the ebb and flow of the moon: the child
desired above all things, desired for itself.
We count the days and wonder, we count the years
out from our first memories of Dad
home from the Navy, playing with a tiger cub
in a Nissen hut on an airforce base where pilots
practiced touch and go in B52s.


Defend the indefensible man
scuttling between the stanzas
his brutal extravaganzas
of fear mirror the plan
to take down Babylon
and build a new century
on the hung jury
of our eidolon.
One truth if we could bear
to know: surrender power,
embrace the embattled air,
sweeten all that we have soured
through our reign.
Drop not the man, but pain.

My prurient interest peaked, the rope was taut,
his neck was broke and nothing changed at all.