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,
For the Tempus-Fugitives Page 5
