For the Tempus-Fugitives Read online

  That wouldn’t, on a closer viewing, shrink

  Down in the undeceiving wash to stress

  How chronically deluded were those folk

  Who pinned our only chance of blessedness

  To hopes like these. The truth of what he spoke

  She came to think self-evident, and so

  Considered it her greatest master-stroke

  In later times of crisis to forego

  All queasy conscience-searching and endorse

  That same bone-deep and chapel-nurtured low

  Opinion of mankind that had its source,

  Not only in his fixed idea of sin

  Congenital and passed down through the course

  Of post-Edenic history, but in

  His having cautioned her to disregard

  All claims that “social progress” let her win

  Against old prejudices that died hard

  Amongst their kind. This was the sort of tale,

  He said, in which those progress-mongers starred

  As heroes of an exploit doomed to fail

  Since based on an agenda that proposed

  Some secular deliverance from the vale

  Of suffering whose significance he glozed,

  Each Sunday, as God-sanctioned to remind

  The faithful of that crookedness disclosed

  In the sin-darkened heart of humankind.

  Such was the message borne by gospel text

  And by the clinching evidence we find

  From one historic instance to the next

  Of promised heavens-on-earth that soon revealed

  The age-old bitter truth whose import vexed

  The social hopers since its only yield

  For them was flat despair. She had no thought

  That perhaps Alfred’s’s take on things concealed

  Motives or interests of another sort,

  That maybe his high praise for those who laid

  Up earthly riches might find scant support

  In holy writ, or that his daily trade

  In groceries and far from generous view

  Of average human nature as displayed

  In everyday transactions gives a clue

  To why his gloss on scripture took a slant

  So sin-obsessed, so resolute to do

  His fellow-mortals down, and keen to grant

  The ultimate depravity of all

  Those secular redemptions that supplant

  The progress-shattering truth. That’s why they fall

  Under proscription as the devil’s work

  Which still (his constant theme) holds us in thrall

  To heretic conclusions that can lurk

  Unnoticed in the noblest hopes and dreams

  Of liberals or those whose bright-side quirk

  Was liable to bring their splendid schemes

  Of social justice to the sorry end

  Reserved for infidels. On suchlike themes,

  With sundry variations, she’d depend

  In times to come when moral or humane

  Considerations turned out to commend

  Some policy that went against the grain

  Of pure self-interest, or that said we’d best

  Seek public goods beyond what served to gain

  The moral high ground only by the test

  Of how far public feeling might be swung

  To further private ends at the behest

  Of corporate interests. They ensured a bung

  By large donations at a timely stage

  In her ascent to power, like those among

  Her media moguls who’d been quick to gauge

  The turning tide and just as quick to seize

  Their chance of giving her the full front-page

  Vote-winning treatment. No surprise if she’s

  So often, decades earlier, to be found

  Head bowed, hands clasped, or silent on her knees

  And inwardly to double business bound

  Since destined now (she knows) to be the one

  Who’d teach them all those principles of sound

  Soul-management that father had begun

  By laying down for the concentric spheres

  Of chapel, home and shop. That’s why she’d stun

  The global commentariat in years

  To come by taking as her guiding light

  A household politics where all frontiers

  Like those set up, as if by natural right,

  By Keynesian economists to flag

  The private/public line would soon invite

  Her stock response: just take your shopping-bag,

  Compare the goods and prices, figure out

  The best deals you can get, be sure to tag

  All items carefully, and then you’d flout

  That whole perverse doxology that held

  It vulgar simple-mindedness to tout

  Such homely wisdom as a lesson spelled

  Straight from the shopping-list. Think too, since it’s

  A thought one’s irresistibly impelled

  To entertain, how perfectly this fits

  With everything she’d later do to show

  The male establishment she’d grabbed all its

  Macho prerogatives so there’d be no

  Conforming to the usual stereotypes

  Of womanhood. Hence her resolve to go

  That extra mile and silence all the gripes

  Of those who said she’d lack the element

  Of grit or sheer cold-bloodedness to wipe

  Her conscience clear each time her actions sent

  Some workforce home, some taskforce out to kill

  And be killed, some directive to torment

  The consciences of those who did her will

  And knew the human costs, or a quick nod

  To the Joint Chiefs of Staff that they should spill

  Enough blood to convince the awkward squad

  She saw things their way. Hard not to conclude

  That something like her father’s vengeful God

  Of petty-bourgeois rancour made her brood

  Incessantly on old wrongs and project

  The retribution onto those she viewed

  Either as foreigners whom you’d expect

  To act like that or “enemies within,”

  Like striking miners. These comprised a sect

  More dangerous by half since their chief sin,

  In her book, was the kind that tore apart

  The bonds of nationhood and laws of kin

  By the fifth-columnist’s satanic art

  Which, for her father’s daughter, always loomed

  Largest of all those lessons at the heart

  Of Judaeo-Christian culture that foredoomed

  Some prophets, tribes or nations to be sold

  Into captivity while others, groomed

  For the lead roles in scripture, joined the fold

  Of God’s own folk. It was her father’s voice

  That echoed in the history they told,

  Those old blood-curdling tales, and in the choice,

  When ratings slipped, to take her chance on war

  As a well-known restorative. “Rejoice!,”

  Her victory-message said, which meant: ignore

  The near one thousand combatants who died

  On both sides, and especially the more

  Than one third of them drowned or fried

  In the old crate Belgrano even though

  The best intelligence placed it outside

  The danger-zone and sailing on a slow

  But steady course that took the ship far clear

  Of anywhere its feeble guns might blow

  A hole in her grand strategy to steer

  The nation back onto the course of true

  Blue values that transcended all such mere

  Facts of the matter. So, if we ask who

  Should, in the longer view, be held to blame,

 
Then working out which guilty foot the shoe

  Fits least toe-pinchingly is not a game

  Best played by asking simply who did what

  In legalistic terms that link up name

  With deed as if through some tight-fastened knot

  Of straightforward agency. This fails to see

  How few of the coordinates that plot

  Our own life-histories are such that we

  Can trace them back to origin and just

  How many of them, subject to i.d.

  Checks of a stricter kind, are such as must

  Be put down to some shaping power that far

  Exceeds the furthest bounds of what we’d trust

  As hitched securely to the guiding star

  Of unique personhood. One standard way

  Of taking this is lowering the bar

  Of moral judgment so that we can say,

  In any given case, let’s just allow

  That tout comprendre, c’est tout pardonner

  Since, everything considered, we can now

  Much better understand that it was well-

  Nigh inescapable she’d turn out how

  She did. This means, should we elect to dwell

  Intently on it, that his favourite line

  Of pulpit-talk, his images of Hell

  Mixed in with thoughts on how best to combine

  True godliness with making all you can

  Along the way, must lead us to assign

  Her to a cool bit of the frying-pan

  And not straight to the fire. Yet that’s to stretch

  Forgiveness to a point where it would span,

  If need be, every human vice and fetch

  Up some fresh mitigating circumstance

  With which attorneys might begin to sketch

  A case for the defence. Then they’d advance

  The cause of all whom adverse fate had left

  With few of life’s advantages, or chance

  Had thrown into a childhood world bereft,

  Like hers, of everything that might have saved

  Them from that home-and-chapel-sanctioned theft

  Of what, for others, all too briefly staved

  Off adulthood’s arrival. We must track,

  It’s clear, some middling course between depraved

  Since all-excusing attitudes that lack

  The blame-idea and others that accord

  Zero allowance to the way things stack

  Up early on and right across the board

  For those whose chief misfortune is to get

  Themselves born into just that unexplored

  Since deeply unappealing social set

  Where piety assumes the sullen guise

  Of lifelong forced sobriety and yet

  Offers sufficient leeway to devise

  Some handy tricks of conscience. These would leave

  It free to pick and choose which rule applies

  In cases where adopting a naïve

  Or literal view of gospel truth could pose

  Large problems, as when trying to deceive

  One’s business rivals, leading by the nose

  Some unsuspecting customer with cash

  To spare, or keeping colleagues on their toes

  With memories of how matron used to thrash

  Them back in public school (such were the joys!),

  Or thinking it good policy to trash

  That ship with its four hundred men and boys

  Rather than let a UN peace-plan wreck

  Her god-sent chance of war to quell the noise

  Of those at home who’d get it in the neck,

  Like those at sea, if only she could fix

  Things there as easily as from the deck

  Of a Class-10 destroyer. These were tricks

  She’d picked up unawares yet by a keen

  Observance, Maisie-like, of that which sticks

  From childhood through the sundry shifts of scene

  In later life when lessons in their use

  For ends of state will turn out to have been

  (Since, so we’re told, more intimate abuse

  Was kept for shop-girls) the most lasting mark

  Our Grantham grocer managed to produce

  Beyond the chapel-door. Soon she’d embark

  On the long quest for what might bring her power,

  At last, to spread the message of his dark-

  Side Manichaean gospel with its dour,

  Self-implicating knowledge of how sin

  Must shadow every act and thought of our

  God-haunted lives. If all great crimes begin,

  As some would say, in childhood’s auguries

  Of innocence undone, who’ll think to pin

  The blame down finally as hers or his?

  NAUGHT FOR YOUR DESIRE

  Viruses like Ebola are notoriously sloppy in replicating, meaning the virus entering one person may be genetically different from the virus entering the next. The current Ebola virus’s hyper-evolution is unprecedented; there has been more human-to-human transmission in the past four months than most likely occurred in the last 500 to 1,000 years. Each new infection represents trillions of throws of the genetic dice.

  —Michael T. Osterholm, New York Times,

  September 11, 2014

  Whichever way you look at it we’re fucked.

  Even if a mutant virus doesn’t kill

  The lot of us this time because we’ve lucked

  Out yet again the next mutation will.

  So if we get to feel like we’re brands plucked

  Safe from the flames by a benign fire-drill,

  Let’s not use this occasion to construct

  Some providential creed meant to instil

  A sense not merely of our having bucked

  The lethal trend (as we might do until

  Our luck runs out) but of our being tucked

  Up tight by one who wards off every ill

  The gene-pool throws at us. High time we shucked

  That childish mindset as the overspill

  Of an old creed that ruled we all conduct

  Our lives as if by preternatural skill

  At offsetting the human goods we’d chucked

  Back in God’s bonfire as against the thrill

  Of knowing he’d ensure we’re never sucked

  Back in there with them, roasting on the grill

  Of all things mortal. Where the bottom fell

  Out of that fine belief was when we hit

  The crossing-point from letting ourselves tell

  A tale of times to come that could admit

  At least some chance it might just turn out well

  To knowing tales like that were full of shit

  Since nothing else could quite explain the smell

  Their telling now gave off. What best befit

  Our brave new world are chronicles of hell

  Retold so as compactly to transmit

  The message that we’d better promptly quell

  All thoughts that anything might come of it,

  That wishful creed that managed to compel

  Our one-time selves and gave us hopes to pit

  Against the harsher knowledge whose dark spell

  Now looms on every hand. So we’d best quit

  The stale pretence that served God’s clientele

  Reliably enough as holy writ

  But now persuades us only to rebel,

  Like Shelley’s Satan, contra the whole kit

  And God-obsessed caboodle of a creed

  That has no room for all the things that may

  At any moment, like some mutant breed

  Of pathogen that tweaks our DNA,

  Go airborne finally and so succeed

  In knocking all the spirit-props away

  For good and all. Where once it guaranteed

  Those hopeful types a fighting chance that they,

  The happy few, might be found f
it to plead

  Exemption come genetic Judgement-Day

  Now they find that assurance of God’s speed

  And health in soul and body fail to stay

  Their joint collapse as errant genes misread

  A nucleotide and start the mortal clay

  On its quick trip to nowhere. So they bleed,

  These Shylocks in reverse, as if to say:

  We thought blind trust would cover every need

  And keep the viral horror-show at bay,

  For us at least, but now it seems that we’d

  Too gladly let ourselves be led astray

  By thinking our lot must be on the side

  Of some Wirklichkeitsprinzip more benign

  Than any of the evidence supplied

  By those—medics, virologists, front-line

  Observers all—whose working notes provide

  A darker estimate. If they incline

  To take Ecclesiastes as their guide

  When asked by some reporter to assign

  The odds, it’s not so much the woe-betide

  Mentality that prompts this saturnine

  Response but knowing how they’re multiplied

  Each time around when segments recombine,

  Swap bases, cross-encode and subdivide,

  So that the chance of things turning out fine

  Is close to zero. Then the nucleotide

  Imperfectly transcoded shows cloud nine

  To be the place we normally reside

  Until those mind-props, human or divine,

  Give way to facts and figures that we’d tried

  To keep unfocused lest they intertwine,