Colossal Crimes Called Civilization

Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem 

Heroic heads of hammered stone lay vast

Beneath the steaming soil for centuries, held

In secret hiding from us all a past

Undreamt, not even when our nightmares swelled

With violence.  Those Olmec kings or priests

(Whatever) made Tutankhamun seem trite,

A tinny golden thing.  Here came some feast

For jungle gods with children in a rite,

When heads are opened and their brains spilled out

Because of holy blades.  The kids screamed, loud

In protest weeping, veins began to spout

Their little life blood pleasing worship’s crowd.

  Child tears were potent potion stuff to make

    The offerings that gods could not mistake.

~ Phillip Whidden