Slapping at skin,
At flesh, at consciousness, from
First naïve breath, first innate scream,
First inkling of self, first misguided inference of
Personal eternity — like fledgling deities —
It starts: all leisurely and soft almost,
Innocuous and easily ignored,
The steady Chop, Chop,
The floating up, the sinking down,
And seems, to fresh indestructible bones,
At times, like the patting of dogs,
When they’re good…
But soon, soon,
It builds and,
Beating at body,
At mind, at acts of
Wielding fit physique
And dictatorial intellect
— Devising wheels, wings,
Philosophies and civilizations,
Bestowing medals and monuments
For forging nations, annihilating nations —
The brutal Chop, Chop, pervasive
And glaringly unkind now,
Asserts its callous truth,
To pummel with
Relentless months, with
Bitter and unyielding years… punitive
Almost, as if the dogs have not been good.
Stunned, we’re outraged and insulted
By such ungodly circumstance,
— Such undeserved aggression! —
And, raving at the Chop, Chop,
We screech, we roar with
Manic indignation, but
All to no effect -
It comes, it comes
And shreds our vanity to rags
When bodies start to bruise and
Bleed. Delusions, definitive and potent once
— Believing we are mighty beings! —
In tatters, ripped, exposed for
Vainglorious conceit, for
Self-important rot
When tendons break,
And muscles atrophy, when
Eyes and minds lose perspicuity…
New strategies now, desperately erecting
Bulwarks of burnt offerings and supplications to
The Gods, at first, then corporate citadels of science -
We triumph, we save billions from the
Onslaught of malevolent asbestos,
Or slow connections, but never
From the Chop, Chop.
Why us, we ask
Dejected, melancholy,
Drowning in self-pity, but
No, not us alone. This destiny awaits
All life, all hearts and pumping filaments alike,
The beasts and birds, the bees, the trees,
— And even rocks, ground into sand,
The sand to dust, the dust to void —
Deprived of any previous being
Or even memory of being
Leviathan or micro germ.
We sigh, and see that
All that is formed
Is fated since genesis to be
Undone, unmade, all substance
Ground beneath the stoic pulverising Chop, Chop.
Backs bent, arms limp against the deluge of
This ruthless repetition, Chop, Chop,
Cleaving joints, cleaving sinews,
— Unmoved by rage, by silence —
Crushing lungs, hopes,
with even memories unspared,
Till finally, we stop, we face the dreadful days,
The sledgehammering hours,
Good dogs, bad dogs,
We take it,
We take the beating
Like stumbling meat piñatas,
Cracking, and fall, we fall to ground, felled
Like toppling trees, and still we feel the steady battering of
Chop, Chop.