Empire

[Jimmy O'Connell]

Empire

This empire is like a family under siege
in its own mind. The perceived or real
insults and cold shoulders have set
like the Sunday raspberry jelly, served
cold and insubstantial, but a regular

item no one thought to change. Empires
fall apart as families can that fear
their neighbour, that refuse to mend original
fissures. One mad-moon night, hate will crack,
spill the dammed desire to wound and destroy;

claim the right, and demand annihilation.

[William]

I like what you're trying to do here Jimmy but I find the piece a bit on the side of mixed metaphor and I think the first sentence doesn't quite work as poetry. But only my opinion.

[Jimmy O'Connell]

Thaqnks William for your comments..
I agree that the mixed metaphor is a bit on the difficult side... but I am trying to be reductionist... I do believe that the roots of war and conflict are, in the essentials, are as insubstantial as jelly/jello... it is one of the tragedies of the human condition...

Jimmy

[blonde madonna]

Jimmy
I was attracted by your avatar (you did it) and it makes me wonder if you see yourself as 'tilting at windmills'?

Now I feel I should say something about your poem. Can you be reductionist and political at the same time? I somehow doubt it. I like the jelly image because it is RED as well as cold, you should make more of it. And I think, for what it's worth, that 'one mad-moon night' is a gem that you throw amongst some imageless words.

with humility
Sancho

[Jimmy O'Connell]

Thank you Blonde....

yes I am the tilter of windmills and dreams...

Jimmy

[blonde madonna]

Just then they came in sight of thirty or forty windmills that rise from that plain. And no sooner did Don Quixote see them that he said to his squire, "Fortune is guiding our affairs better than we ourselves could have wished. Do you see over yonder, friend Sancho, thirty or forty hulking giants? I intend to do battle with them and slay them. With their spoils we shall begin to be rich for this is a righteous war and the removal of so foul a brood from off the face of the earth is a service God will bless."

"What giants?" asked Sancho Panza.

Don't fight your dreams Jimmy.

[Jimmy O'Connell]

Blonde..

To paraphrase Sancho....
"What dreams?"

That is the crux of the matter.... maybe I, we, are both the Don and Sancho....

Jimmy