This poem is a sequel of sorts to “Justice from Inanna”, written a year later. The proximate motivation for writing it was the news that the Tories had won the British general election on 12 December 2019, but the poem is more generally about the rise of fascism around the world in recent years.
“Inanna and the Tories”
13 December 2019, in Hyattsville, Maryland
Queen of Heaven, Lady of Great Uruk,
Giver of States and Cities and Laws:
Is this what you meant for us,
How you meant for us to end?
We have trusted you because of all you gave us,
Because of the promise we believed in:
That six thousand years of the lash and crown,
Had finally won us a better world.
I know I could not survive without you,
Without the tools and medicines of civilization,
But I fear the price is not yet paid,
Nor ever will be paid in full.
I have to wonder whether we can live with it,
If despots stand up again and put lash to the world:
Will you display the mes for us,
Of freedom, of liberty, of justice?
Or will you hold them back and once again
Allow the few to make us all their slaves?