America is the Great Satan.—Ruhollah Khomeini
One night of moonless terror, great Lucifer’s broad wings
Rose up in smoky billows from the flame of hellish things:
The pyres of the Ganges, the ovens of the camps,
The smokestacks of Chicago and the trashcans of the tramps.
They turned and swooped like falcons upon the victim earth—
Brought shadows of disease and grief, of destitution, dearth,
Of unexampled murder, atrocity full blown—
Whatever pain could touch us at the soul or at the bone.
They left behind them weeping, the groans of broken men,
The shrieking of the wounded at their mangled flesh. And then
The wings sank back to darkness, like adders to their holes,
Where devils are inured and deaf to screaming human souls,
And where no breath of music, no lilting plaint of lyres,
No harmony of voices from the archangelic choirs,
No seven spheres in concert, no chiming of a bell
Can break the mirthless silence at the icy core of hell.
