Sentience

By Tomas Figura ’25

Eerie chords in the silence of wailing
deep as the night, as the mournful whine
and hollow as the resonant drum notes.
Grasshoppers prance across the fields
in the celestial race for life
where the rainbow is burning
while millions perish in agony.
 
Don’t say
              don’t say
                           you’re shedding tears…
 
This game is sinless and terrible fornication
fools are in the stars
and sober fell into drunkenness
in enthusiasm, cry glory;
in enthusiasm, prostrate to the ground;
in enthusiasm, entwine the zealous whip --
until you recognize the infinite futility of nothing
until you see how the leaf descends
and you die curled up in a skein.
Listen, keep listening to this
sad ending and --
 
Don’t say
              don’t say that your tears
                                                   are stinging.