poem, poetry, humanity, history

FOR THAT LESSON

I was not there
for that lesson
when Adam and
Eve scoffed
forbidden fruit
had to high-tail
it from Eden

I missed the moral
and geopolitical teaching
that story purveys

similarly, must have
skipped class when
the Mongols took
Baghdad, the Crusaders
stormed
into Jerusalem, they
had their final
solution indaba at
Wannasee, and
Enola Gay dropped
her fat
fat egg

and so many knowledge
laden, wisdom enriched
tutorials and workshops
will no doubt
be scheduled when
I am no
longer around

history is the story of
where exactly we
were not
at the time, what
shaped
the world we
were born into, could
not
have been born
without which

but such a bloody, terrible,
power-driven furious fable
neither
more nor less
than this one we are in.