A Trifecta For Our Times: two lamentations and a song of hope, a poetry and animation collaboration by Karlo and Kaleb Sevilla

The Poems

Mob Rule

Consider this sea of movement, the multitude in waves.
Now, deceptively calm, until by a mysterious wave
of a demagogue’s hand, it shall arise tidal
to sweep and ruin everything in its path.

Then, what crimes in whose or what name
will be committed?

And history is replete with precedents
which lessons we refuse to learn
or have unlearned:

A hundred flowers bloomed,
a thousand flowers crushed.

First, they predicted a fire.
Then, they started a fire.

(Last night, I taught my children to weep in secret
because the predators,
when they see tears,
smell blood.)

In the name of superstition, religion.
In the name of science, revolution.
In the name of one man.

It shall be another spectacular but unbeautiful release.
A pyrotechnics of collective anger.
A cause righteous or unrighteous
but without doubt waged
virulently—violent
and vicious.

We’ll run away to survive,
only to perish
at borders.

-          Collective Unrest, February 28, 2019 (nominated for Best of the Net 2019),
       Bulb Culture Collective, May 13, 2023

The  Cult  of  Apathy
The unleashed predators roam and preach:
a spade is a club is a diamond is a heart.

A few brave untruths and inclement weather,
march and sing outside roofs and walls.

Most watch, sleep, dream inside
flimsy shelters of sticks and straw.

All gazed at azure half of sky,
when behind rumbled a gathering storm.

Now the plagues will not just pass us by;
we are untethered on a slippery edge.

Perhaps they’ll cut us all to pieces,
but we shall forever hold our peace.

There’s convenience in indifference,
and cold comfort trumps conscience.

-          Matter, September 15, 2017

It Will Be Done

We caught glimpses of it
through the uneven roads we have taken,
and the stations we have reached.

Its fulfillment unfolds, still,
versus the parasites;
our collective hands
creating a new wholeness:

Home raised back to abundance.

We all feel the birth pains
of the future we are delivering.

And there will still be wailing…

But it is being born.

 And it will be done.

-          Tuck Magazine, October 27, 2017

Words: Karlo Sevilla
Animation & Direction: Kaleb Sevilla

Copyright © 2024 Karlo Sevilla, Kaleb Sevilla
all rights reserved