Cassandra’s Complaint

Cassandra Imploring the Vengeance of Minerva against Ajax, Jérome Martin Langlois the Younger

Apollo, I see what no one wants to hear:
People arrive at death in moral shock
not knowing why they lived or who they were;
our species runs to dash itself on rocks;
the millions starve for no more worthy cause
than others’ whim, greed, vengeance, will to power,
indifference, urge to vindicate the laws
of Marx or market, theory of the hour.

Justice does happen, yes! It gropes by chance
through winding corridors to a bored court
where litigants will waste their years in a trance
of hatred, stays, and motions—deadly sport.
Can I, or any, cut this monstrous waste?

With sight and speech, not action, were you graced.