UNHAPPY IS THE LAND THAT NEEDS HEROES
Martin Arnold

The crane must test the branch before it folds its wings.
The jay inside the hawthorn travels by foot.
But the answer to any question you ask a samurai is:
1) Cut down your enemies; 2) Take your own life;
Or, often, 3) Both. At the samurai’s height
Imperial Japan must have been littered
With soldiers slumped over their swords.
One summer I watched Conan the Barbarian,
Played by Schwarzenegger, almost every weekend.
Conan’s definition of The Good: Defeat your enemies.
See them driven before you. Hear the lamentation of their women.
His smile through the gap in his teeth at a beautiful woman
Is enough to drag her by the hair back to his place.
Conan even punches out a camel.
Gone were the days of chivalrous knights on quests
Until our crusading president made a desert
And called it peace (Tacitus).
Live like you are dead, say the samurai
As Grant staggers into class, hair standing on end
Like an advertisement for an appliance
You shouldn’t operate near water.
Oh, rainbows bent across the skies of tiny bubbles.
Oh, foamy refugees clinging to knee-islands in the tub.
Once upon a time was so long ago.
Our heroes have always been actors.
We want Justice to gallop into town on her karmic horse
To kick up the dust of social upheaval
And instead we get shiny bows. Spray snow.
Electric reindeer grazing on the lawn.