1922 (Poetry Marathon 2022 Hour 4)

The war to end all wars
Had ended
The Spanish Flu epidemic
Was over
The era of
Electricity and automobiles and airplanes and radio
Was now
Human potential was exponential
The stock market reflected the confidence
That things will only get better
In a world where we finally understand
The economy is everything
A new kind of dancing to a new kind of music
Led to a new kind of understanding
Of human nature
Benevolence momentarily overtaking the
Negative reaction to modernity
And yet

A warm dry wind
Blowing from West to East
A realization that
Human capital is unpredictable
As European empires built
Over centuries
Could not recover
From the destruction
Of war
And the devastating effects of the flu
And the combined unimaginable number of deaths

The low pressure of reality
Met the high pressure of expectations
Of technological advances
Creating a long-lasting unsteady shifting unstable violent storm
The consequences of which led directly
To the economic and then political collapse
Experienced through the mid 20th century
Even more unimaginable deaths
From war and famine and deliberate cruelty
How do we call it inhumane?
And still today

And yet

TV and computers and access to unlimited knowledge
Human capital is fungible and ultimately expendable
In a world where we have internalized the understanding
That the economy is everything
And yet

We have recently learned there is no point
In trying to modernize
Because the only thing that matters
Is what a few men thought
About human rights at the end of the 18th century
The lessons of the 19th century,
The 20th century
And the 21st century do not matter
When it comes to life and death
And perhaps yet