The Form Remains The Same

Graham Sparks

Bathurst, New South Wales

Australia

At the hearing of the tales of tender girls seduced by caliphatic propaganda,
to be the brides of aging jihad men who dream of meadow couch and virgins,
my memory clunks and groans in recollection of another paradise ;

The hexa-deccan ’topia of fifty years ago
where girls bedecked in saris slaved at kitchen stoves
and washed the nappies of a hoard of brats by hand,
while cheese cloth boys went out adventuring in search of fuel for bongs.
Nothing’s really changed;
the bong transports a bloke to meadows furnished with fine couches,
upon which virgins may be broken in.

Love hippie … blood hippie
peace hippie … war hippie,
the names of variables varies
but the form remains the same.

Perhaps my vision is a little stilted
but it seems to me it’s man alone who dreams utopias
while women do the dirty work that keeps the bubble floating,
a paradise with dirty underware methinks
is not a paradise at all.

And so it seems that all utopias are boats that float upon
what flows from kitchen hearth and washtub,
and hence from womens’ elbow grease.
And further;
all utopias are sharers of the same foundation, and each a scum upon a surface,
and further yet;
every apple has it’s worm, and every paradise it’s serpent.

Bio: Graham says this piece is self-explanatory, but presumes the reader is familiar with certain religious tenets.