I wrote a poetry volume while trying to countenance the dystopian madness and tyranny of COVID. It saved my mentation if not my life. The poems made me laugh. They helped me see, confirm, and share things in humorous, entertaining, and poignant ways. And they still seem appropriate today, although we live today in a different dystopian madness and under a different tyranny. (Smile. It’s alright.) I’m going to share several of the poems in the volume over the next few days and weeks. Please let me know if they make you smile, laugh, cry, or otherwise react in healthy ways. Below is the volume’s introduction and then its first poem, for which I named the book.
Have you noticed that the world’s gone mad? Every generation has the same sense of having lost reality’s touch. Every generation looks forward with trepidation, knowing itself unmoored into the unleashed storm, no turning back. What once seemed immutable suddenly changes, in the modern mind. The change unsettles the mind, casting loose other possibilities that the mind hadn’t until then even considered. Every generation must plumb again the depth of the soul, when the soul had already seemed to have reached the bottom. Then we go deeper still, into chasms of chaos we hadn’t previously imagined.
Yet one cannot speak sense to the modern mind, at least not directly. We vigorously oppose, if not condemn, anything we’re told. Truth must sneak in under our self-righteous radars. It must catch us unawares, when our guards are down. Truth must whisper to us in the night, when after a long day of obstinance, we have no choice but to listen. Even then, we argue and resist. How can truth reach our hard hearts past our blind eyes, through our deaf ears, and into our thick skulls? Jesus told truths in parables, letting those with ears listen, and those with eyes see, knowing that insight was his Spirit’s work. The Spirit does not work by force but invitation. People accept invitations whispered to them, not when struck over the head. I have no idea how to write a parable. Maybe this poetry will do. You decide. Just know: the world’s gone mad.
What did I just hear, Or was it a trick of my ear? No, it couldn’t be, no eye should see. What just happened? Who would have predicted, Of all things edicted. No, it mustn’t be, despite their glee. What just happened? Who ever imagined, They’d make a pageant Of things long hidden, hell hath bidden. What just happened? Where went institutions? We’ve lost our ablutions. No longer pretense of cleansing nonsense. What just happened? Nonsense reigns, It glories rather than shames. Fools they prance in their senseless dance. What just happened? To the world we look, But all reality it forsook. Nothing makes sense in the present tense. What just happened? What was up is now down, No longer a smile, only a frown. Our boats unmoored, we need logic restored. What just happened? Is this madness our end, Without foundation to lend? We teeter and totter, sickness our fodder. What just happened? They’d say it’s justice for crimes of our past, But many see it instead as daft. Perhaps we must pay, or so they say. What just happened? Having no remedy at all, in chaos’s thrall, On which to hang hope, at end of our rope; Look once again, more effort to spend. What just happened? We must struggle on, the future upon Which we depend, unknown of our end. What does future hold but more things untold? What just happened? Somewhere in here, we must no longer fear, But take hold of grace and smile of face. For paradise invites, from a world of spites. What just happened? What happens when Christ returns, fears he spurns, Offering his sanity over unending vanity. For Christ only knows how the world bestows Fear upon fear, to hide his glories, future dear.