Terror is this opaque horizon, toppling on the brink
Of seeming void; in emptiness of a missile spent,
Margins smudged with names obscured under ink
Of tyranny of those that will not relent, or think,
There may have been a gleam to glean but then
The witness blinked and the sky was splinter-rent,

This is the side you can look at and not perceive,
And all the sane ones leave or turn into the hush;
This is the wane, the warp, the crush of distortion
Where the measure of each worth becomes spin,
Derision and dissection, disproportion as we begin
To carve up our ideals. We do not see their faces,
Only numbers and portions of unwanted ones
To tote up when we feel society is encumbered,

It’s no matter who they are; this much is always true,
Just that they are vulnerable and different to you,
As fascists get their foothold, Europe again is burning
And we’ve stopped looking for reason or reproof, or
Nerve inside to be vessels of essence worth returning,

We, lost in pride and trepidation enclosed in unconcern,
We do not see ourselves, we do not see above ourselves,
Flames cease to illuminate when they’re used to burn
Progression echoed in past man-made hells, this the
unseeing sequence, mislaid measure, a lesson,
A consequence of all transgression. If we make light
No concession, disregarded glimmers refract nothing;
Unseen slivers become shards; nights of broken glass
Mirrored again and again and again, the Jack of cards
Trumps the deck again in convolution, each oblique pass
Into hidden circles that seek the next bright revolution.

Antonia Sara Zenkevitch