Against the Megarians

Where lie the borderlands
Of the explanation
Versus the narrative?

Every border’s a state
Of its own that neither
Is nor isn’t, neither

Is nor is excluded,
Keeps indeterminate.
Sometimes the border’s fine,

So narrow as to be
All but invisible.
Sometimes there’s a formal

DMZ, twinned borders
On either side of that.
Or it sprawls, unpoliced,

Potentially either,
Thus its own dynamic.
Explanation’s like that,

Or rather, the unnamed
And indeterminate
No-One’s land that stretches

Out explanation’s edge,
Touching narrative lands.
When have you passed across,

Among nations, and when
Are you merely marooned?
Likely story, you say,

When an explanation
Seems too contorted, seems
Too fantastic, or seems

To explain too neatly
Too much. That’s when you know
You’re in the phantom zone

Between explication
From beginning to end,
Which would be narrative,

And wholly beginning
Again with another
Plotless explanation.

Oh, us? We’re those species
Evolved in potentia
Within these borderlands.

Responsibility

The extreme violence
Humans visit on each
Other—cruel, exact,

Deliberately more
Than death or victory—
Torture, dismemberment

While alive, strategized
To inflict the most pain
And humiliation

Possible before death
And then, often as not,
To try to shame the corpse—

Hacked to pieces, trophies,
Heads on pikes. You do this,
If not personally—

Some member of your group,
Some cousin, ancestor,
Your government, police.

Humans torture humans—
Not every day, not all
Humans all of the time,

But the capacity
Lurks in every village,
Every church or kin group,

To inflict, to exploit
The terror, pain, terror
Of pain life gifted all

Lives, including humans,
Including torturers.
We are words. We are not

Only not innocent.
We know we bear the most
Responsibility.

Gluing History

You can’t find anyone honest
By holding a lamp to daylight,

And a little mythology
Never rehabilitated

A liar. The worst crimes are yours.
If everyone confessed their own

To everyone and selected
Mutually agreed punishments—

We know that would never happen.
You can cut and paste convictions,

Glue little bits of history
To each other until you all

Look like broken statuary
Reassembled by small children,

And that’s fine. Small children you were
And small children you shall remain,

With fingers crossed for pinky swears
And weapons readied for gouging.

What would you do to one of you
Who confined all accusations

To self-accusation, whose acts
Were worth condemnation? For shame.