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Robert K. Omura lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada where he practices law. He is active in education, law reform, the environment and the outdoors. His fiction and poetry appears or is forthcoming in numerous literary journals, ezines and anthologies, including the Raving Dove, the Rose & Thorn, and Paradigm, and he read his poetry on CBC Radio for National Poetry Month in 2008. He is currently working on a novel, but that's slow going at best.





 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

of the Medusa

 

 

 

 Robert K. Omura

Let’s toss young lambs on sacrificial pyres
to see if their Botero fat – no, our fat
can snuff out the flames of foreign discontent.
Enough plump bodies in quick succession
might prove the truth of it:
fat burns at 250 degrees Celsius.
 
But did we learn anything else?
 
An important lesson in “peace-making”
gleaned from anthropological observations
careful field work amongst the heathen tribes
like Levis-Strauss, Malinowski or Radcliffe-Brown
ten thousand years of western history
cannot teach us, despite ourselves –
voices can be muted, but hatred never dies.
 
Did we forget how to sell Coca-cola and Santa Claus?
I wonder…
 
When the yolk of misguided policy breaks
and the cracked Medusa spits out her miscreant cargo
where are our dashing superheroes?
Have they all gone to China to work for Mattel?
 
Starlight, star bright,
whose fallen star burns brightest tonight?
Did their desperate preoccupation
bore of our celebrities and stars?
Imagine! How misguided they must be…
Forget the CARE and UNICEF crates,
send their schools TV Guide and Star Inquirer –
all children need to “know” what to read.
Remind them just who we are!
We worship stars too.
 
Red rover, red rover,
we call AOL-Time Warner over!
Calling out for our heroes of hegemony
make our dreams come true.
 
 
We need your superpowers!
All they’ve ever needed was a Wal-Mart in Kabul
a Pottery Barn in Khartoum and CNN truths.

 

On Gericault's The Raft