A Lament For Europe

A Lament for Europe Land of the Setting Sun Caldron simmering in hungering desperation To regain the smacks of the Past. You seek to lunge ahead On the energy of Your logic And hopes not yet lionized. You call upon Your histories To lend strength to Your phantasies. You coil up hard on Your proud self Wrinkled and weather-beaten. You struggle to nurture new flowers On the dry rot of Your haunted memories. Your youth, sniffed upon by strapped canine squads, Rape-hate in Your stadiums Striped with electronic rejoinders To press softly-pliant, gaily-tinged plastic buttons. Your elderly curl their ways to bankrupt health ministries Where physicians fool with forms And fill in football pools. Your neighbors to the East— Brazen, sordid— Yank towards You Roughly extracting for exacting theirs craved for. You, Europe, sit pickled— Soused in the juices of Your scummy heretofore. Your dabblers in politics set flags unfurled And their powers shame— Shame!— This Our world. Anthony St. John