FLORES PARA LOS MUERTOS de Juan O'neill

"Flores para los muertos... coronas para los muertos..."

The eerie chant of a woman selling floral wreaths for the dead

casts a pall over the sensual household of the Kowalskis,

in Tenessee Williams's "A streetcar named Desire".

The tenants, of course, do not know that a dark fate awaits them,

one that owes to Sophocles and Euripides than to Freud.

The ancient Greeks had a saying: Those whom the gods destroy,

they first make mad"; and think the Greeks were on to something.

"Flores para los muertos... coronas para los muertos..."

I hear that woman's voice now every time I turn on the news.

The Cold War's over: Mutually assured destruction is out of fashion.

What's "in" is: "God gave this land to me!" "No, to me!"

"These stones are holy!" "Wash them with the infidel blood!"

"Kill Hindus!" "Kill Muslins!" "Kill Christians!" "Kill Jews!"

Old injustices, allowed to fester unseen, turn gangrenous,

beget worse injustices, as the world re-learns the lines of an old play.

It's all back: Holy saliva flecks the lips of rightous killers,

while the sensual feast of the world's "haves" goes unblinkingly on;

every mad excess that money can buy is catered to, indulged;

and the "have-nots" can only feast hungrily on TV screens,

as Armageddon's carrion-birds gather for their feast.

"Flores para los muertos... coronas para los muertos..."

On the night of 9/11, after a long day's journey into madness,

a strange thought occured to me: "I have lived into the future."

I did not realize that I had lived into the past.

FLORES PARA LOS MUERTOS de Juan O'Neill