ROBIN OUZMAN HISLOP
Tenochtitlan
note Tenochtitlan. Great lake city that for two centuries was the capital of the Atzec empire,
built by the warring Mexica tribes of the Atzec peoples &destroyed by the Spanish
conquistador Hernan Cortes in 1519.
Who is to say?
O Tenochtitlan, lake city
of floral rooftops, white washed walls
trim green gardens, aqueducts
&clean swept alleyways
that you should fall
to ruin
to colossal wreck.
Your God’s cruel laughter
ruler of havoc, chaos, destruction
that final mockery
you knew too well
to shelter from
city of magic, bathed in blood.
*
Who is to say?
An Aeon
a fated sun in its fifth heaven
the prophecy must be fulfilled
when they came in their filth, their lust
to tread your sacred warrior
blood matted hair, immersed in feculence
en plein air of unassuaged sacrifice, into dust
not a death of feathers & flowers.
*
Who is to say?
As you tossed your hapless
victim’s corpse, gouged heart devoured
on the sacrificial stone slab, down
the great pyramid steps to the suffering poor beneath.
Your captive, who was your self
whose steps you’d rehearsed, unto their final agony.
Whose flesh, prohibitive for you, you must share
in scattered pieces on the base maize porridge
in your neighbours’ clean kept homes
but not to the wretched poor
the phantom watchers, who must only crave for more.
*
Who is to say?
that you thought of tomorrow
that it belonged to the deed
what it was to be human.
Not so, your new world order conquerors
who raised to the ground &levelled all before them
until nothing remained.
Your conquerors, who thought only of tomorrow.
poetryrepairs #228 16,09:106
ROBIN OUZMAN HISLOP
Solaris
Notes: Solaris. Stanislaw Lem
I’m out of the Station
out of the shuttle
perched on this moving
crumbling Mimoid
in its shimmering ocean
disintegrating
like an ancient city in ruins
like a Pompeii in lava.
Suddenly there’s Snow’s voice
in my brain, she’s gone Kelvin
she’s gone, she was just a projection.
The ocean laps at my booted feet
as if to anoint them
as porous stalagmites slide underward.
It’s in my blood, but not my blood
our crystals are alien, i hear
Snow’s voice again, like an echo
She was just a projection
& you, Snow, what are you, i yell
as the stalactites fall to dust – ‘Snow!’
poetryrepairs #228 16,09:106
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ROBIN OUZMAN HISLOP, born UK, a reader in philosophy &religions, has traveled extensively
throughout his lifetime but now lives in semi- retirement as a TEFL teacher and translator in
Spain &the UK.
ROBIN OUZMAN HISLOP Robin was editor of the 12 year running on-line monthly poetry journal Poetry Life and
Times. In 2013 he joined with Dave Jackson as co-editor at Artvilla.com, where he presently
edits Poetry Life & Times, Artvilla.com, Motherbird.com.
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