The Martyrs
“No cluttered shelves with hanging altar cloths will ever save us. Nor will any ancient yellow poster of some killer angel explain the stain of sin or let us in on the secret of how Christ forgave us and how at last our cause must win.”
Surrealist Prophecies #5
The fifth in a sequence of surrealist prophecies written using the divinatory technique of automatic writing (with subsequent revision). The theme of the sequence is the collapse of our global civilization due to uncontrollable climate change, leading to a mass rejection of both faith and reason and the re-enchantment of our world among the ruins of our failed creations. Some of the poems in the sequence are set before the Fall and portray the spiritual and emotional dilemma of our current crisis. Some describe the Fall itself, and the strange changes in thought and perception that will be needed if any are to survive a world in which humanity has been radically de-centered. Some describe the world to come, a world newly alive with gods and spirits yet free of all dogma or fixed belief – a world of beauty and strange magic.
The fifth prophecy was inspired by an old CNT-FAI propaganda poster from the Spanish Civil War, and the yearly march in honor of anarchist martyrs every May Day. Respect for our honored dead is not a substitute for building a world.
Public Domain Image From Wikimedia Commons
The Martyrs
Outside, the waters of a springtime sky
Plunge screaming from the heights.
And in the stain
That creeps along this poster on my wall
Free Barcelona falls.
And on the rain, I hear dead heroes asking if they lived in vain - if there was no message in their martyrdom, no future hope, but only a longer rope with which to hang ourselves.
To clinging altar cloths, to cluttered shelves,
Our selves attach themselves.
Adore your gods,
But never tell yourself your faith can change the odds.
No cluttered shelves with hanging altar cloths will ever save us. Nor will any ancient yellow poster of some killer angel explain the stain of sin or let us in on the secret of how Christ forgave us and how at last our cause must win.
Our gods are here -
They move within our bodies and the turning of the year.
Our gods are real -
They live in every drop of blood and every spark of wood or steel.
Our dead are dust -
Unless we give them life with every act, in each of us.
Our dead are seeds -
These flowers never bloom with faith
But deeds.
Christopher Scott Thompson
Christopher Scott Thompson is an anarchist, martial arts instructor, devotee of Brighid and Macha, and a wandering exile roaming the earth. Photo by Tam Zech.