Evil by Arthur Rimbauld

Ufff. What a poem. Each verse feels saturated with the bloody, neglected horrors of our own time — horrors I’m no doubt forcing into it, but can’t help seeing there

Couldn’t stop hearing the echoes of the present.

While loud the red-flecked mouths of cannons sing
And grapeshot whistles under empty sky;
While, red and green, before each preening King,
The massed battalions break, and thousands die;
While flowers bloom and sweet grass grows again,
In splendid sunshine, under summer heat,
And madness grinds a hundred thousand men
Into a steaming pile of rotting meat; …

A God smiles down through incense-laden air
At chalices and altars, gold, ornate,
And slowly dozes off to mumbled prayer;
But wakes when black-clad mothers, bowed with grief
And weeping, clink into His silver plate
The few coins in a knotted handkerchief.