Donovan's Pantoum
A child screams in the cold.
A man cries for his lover.
A woman dies by the words of a doctor.
A boy bleeds for a victory-less war.
A man cries for his lover,
A woman fights to live,
A boy bleeds for a victory less war,
The sparrow screams for his mother.
A woman fights to live
For her dying child;
The sparrow screams for his mother,
His heart beating pitifully.
For her dying child
She would break the world.
His heart beating pitifully
The last mother cries for her loss.
She would break the world
Told to her by the last father.
The last mother cries for her loss
Realizing only now the truth of his words
Told to her by the last father
‘A person left to themselves destroys’
Realizing now the truth of his words
She sobs as the harbinger of death
A person left to themselves destroys
Absolutely everything.
She sobs as the harbinger of death.
She didn’t want this.
Absolutely everything
Was destroyed by the mother's love.
She didn’t want this,
Sadly Death doesn’t listen to the whimpers of the living.
Was destroyed by a mother’s love:
Man, woman, and child;
Sadly death doesn’t listen to the whimpers of the living
All dead from the love of the mother
Man, woman, and child
Murdered in masquerade masks
All dead from the “love” of the mother,
As she calls it.
Murdered in masquerade masks
She broke the world and
As she calls it
Her universe.
She broke the world and
In doing so herself,
Her universe,
Her child.
In doing so herself,
She had no one to blame for
Her child
Dying by her own deed.
She had no one to blame for
Her sadness. She found ways of
Dying by her own deed
Falling into her patterns of destruction
Her sadness, she found ways of
Giving it to everyone by
Falling into her patterns of destruction,
Forgetting her children who still live.
A child screams in the cold
At his mother who will never raise him.
The woman dies by the words of a doctor
The child is gone.