Mutants

There were mutants here then,

sprouting up in the fecund soil

of the last century, like warriors

born from the jetsam of pomegranates.

But they had sweet faces, girded their loins,

had all sorts of fancy ornaments;

and they said they were here to help us,

to dig us out from the grave-like mental morass

into which we had fallen.

You may easily comprehend

how insulted we were;

insinuation of our inferiority

put, so to speak, a gall in our glottis,

goaded us to reconsider them as our enemies.

As surely as they chided us, their sly depreciations

were undermining as termites, munching quietly

at the values we have always considered significant.

They were like fungi which decimated the chestnut trees;

They were red rising tides, creeping insidiously in the moonlight,

across inlets, staining white sand on the beaches.

White jacketed, clean, laboratory oriented, their obscene

utilization of abortifacient plants, clones,

molecular-biological-stem-cell-futuristicisms,

made us all so furious that when one day we had a leader

whose strength of conviction was in agreement

with that which had convinced most of us,

we made short work of them, actually killed them;

in one great Bartholemew-like Massacre,

scattered the parts like so much night soil.

So now there is no one to harass us.

No more mutants, no more anyone with a funny nose

or perverted ideations. And in general we are a happier people.

 

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