Poem of Hope

The soldiers are still coughing up roses.
There is still no center to the universe.
The dancers are not moving:
The elders know better than to surrender.

The bluebirds (or buzzards) are caught in a frieze;
There is no hope left for the dying.
There is no hope for the wanderer as well:
The President tells us that he is certain he is mad.

Heretofore he has managed (he says)
All the uprisings to protect the children;
He made no concessions whatsoever,
The gods will let us know (he explains),
If the world has gone into remission.

There was no general damage to the treasury;
The masters think the attack was "purely avuncular."
The president's first counsellor explained that love
Was neither here nor there. Nor, in his words,
Was it possible to survive life
Without all impossible dreams intact.

The President and his consort (the lovely Esmeralda)
Have, so far, given no audiences;
They've played no favorites with the crowds;
They certainly haven't watched any of the games of courtship
That once made the lives of the rest of us
So very pressing, if not so flowery.

Have they buried all the soldiers yet?
Are they still coughing up roses?
Who blesses their graves?
Is there still no center to the universe?
What night looms before us?