BURNT BOOKS

(dedicated to a little heroine named Malala Yousufzai)

Somewhere in my psyche
there's a dim, dark repressed
memory

of bigots burning
pages labelled bad books;
tons of priceless tomes
dedicated to advancement,
the knowledge of the ages;
fascists burning
libraries in Alexandria;

zealots burning
tresses of trembling
Salem sisters labelled witches
at stakes and solemn crosses
in bonfires of holy hell;
adulteresses,
death sentences by stoning
abominations
with boulders and humiliations
in public places;
all in the name of heresies;
Inquisitions and confessions
wrung with racks from visionaries;
and genital mutilations of trembling
little girls, scarred in secret places;
all in the name of religions,
all in the name of traditions.

Somewhere in my psyche
there's a dim, dark suppressed
memory

of bigots burning
crosses and colored churches;
tarred and feathered bodies;
swollen, purple fruit suspended
from twisted limbs of poplar trees
swaying in the southern breeze;
fascists burning
bodies, gassed and stacked and bundled
like cords of firewood
in demonic Auschwitz death camps.

Somewhere in my psyche
there are dim, dark repressed
memories.

Now with bullets to the head,
bigots, fascists and zealots are stoning
female babies, burning
female babies, fourteen year old babies
just because they yearn for books
and learning;
twisted sadistic warning
just because they yearn for books
and learning.

Somewhere in my psyche
there are dim, dark repressed
memories

of a Dark Age;
memories in dim recesses;
memories of Dark Ages
the world once thought were gone.

©2012 by G. Newton V. Chance