The Missed Millennium


A new millennium approaches
and the old, fin de siècle madness
begins to spread — the violence,
the hatred, the mutual distrust
and paranoia. We’ve already flayed
the tosser of the monkey wrench.

A few years got lost
a while back — so keep
your millennial angst at bay
(of dust) for at least
another thousand revolutions
around the sun. For ten
of your terrestrial years
we observed you as peers,
walking and talking among you,
fathoming the human condition
as best we could — what it means
to be ephemeral,
to feel the flesh,
to apprehend
beginnings and endings,
to feel the flesh,
to welcome insights like flashes
in the darkness, the darkness
that is terra cognita
to the benighted,
to feel the flesh —
and for the decade-long
duration of our experiment
we nullified your awareness
of the passage of time.
For you there was only
the eternal now moment,
the augenblick
that alone among you
Meister Eckhart seemed to understand.
For ten years 
we sowed your fertile soil
with gratuitous graces
and subliminal messages
and watched you grow, then vanished
back to the bay of dust
and the keep of old forgotten dreams,
and we snapped our fingers
and you all woke up.
Bed-wetters, the lot of you.

So you’ve missed your new millennium,
it’s ten years behind you
and the world didn’t come to an end.
But rest assured
we can arrange for you
to arrange that for you. Don’t push
your luck and you’ll be fine.

Copyright © 1995, 1997 by Keith Allen Daniels.

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