Antipathy (strong or deep-rooted dislike; the object of such dislike; an opposition in character, nature, tendency etc)

The thinking man cradles his head in his hands
too tired to cry
or to fight the weight of despair
he covers his eyes
to try and block out the obscene red glare
of the coca-cola billboard that now eclipses the sun.

As the confetti flies and falls
swirling in the overcrowded sky
it looks like snow
then again so did the ashes of Auschwitz
so the stories go.

Where is the angel of history these days?
talking religion with Marx and Jesus?
wagering when we'll wake up and tire from selfishness
with Gandhi and King?
playing chess with Weber perhaps?
telling Pareto how crazy he is?
having a good long laugh with Malcolm, Che, and Patrice perhaps?
Something about a comic remembered, about how people were sure
the message would, die if they could just
assassinate the messenger?

Angel dear
do your ears tire from listening to our ongoing joke?
do your hands grow weak from being bound so long?
have you forgotten the sound of your own voice?
Once you spoke to the heart of revolutionaries
held a silent vigil to the call for social change
you watched leader after leader fall
and carried them each to a different grave
but now you seem to distant for us to remember
your message is dead
killed by propagandistic distortion and reality t.v.
you've left the thinker alone so long
he has to plead and wrestle with the words of those long gone
rather than find his own truth with which to speak
and Truth is being mass-marketed
the newest, hottest, sure-fire thing
evangelicals have turned car-salesmen
pimping on every corner the reader's digest version
of Old Testament Christianity
They are stripping your wings
My dear
they are stripping us all of our wings
and stuffing them in our mouths
so that no one will ever again speak
of experiences they would rather forget.
wipe clean.
erase.

These are men who prefer
to wrestle with the shadows of shadows.
They curse angels and search angles
for a self reflected in what he consumes
rather than what consumes him.

Why won't you speak the words
that swell the tongue of those
who are only safe
if they remain slaves
to a life lived
in metaphor?


*title explanation is the dictionary definition of the word antipathy, courtesy of Webster's
New World College Dictionary Fourth Edition.*

This poem is inspired by three things: Walter Benjamin's reference to the Angel of History, quoted in Carolyn Forche's book by the same name; Maus I and II; and by the poem "Stripped of Wing" on thestoneangel.blogspot.com. The above is dedicated to the thinkers and revolutionaries mentioned above who had FAR more of a grasp of history than many Americans do today and dedicated to all of my friends and fellow thinkers who continue to ask as the speaker in the poem does: when will history stop repeating itself?
The angel has become a dark silence and the silence lies. Undisturbed.
The silence is the only answer we have at the present moment.
Also I'd like to offer my gratitude to a wonderful conversation I had with a retired professor today who told me of how he and his students survived intellectually by learning to speak and live in metaphor. I wonder if this isn't why the thinking man hides his eyes and covers his mouth with his hands?

And the angel falls into the future with his back turned...