Enemy

Looking across a no-man’s land
In which you hesitate to dwell;
No possibility of recognition
At such a distance.

And your enemy,
As you define him,
Lives in a shocking skin,
Discoloured by too much sun
Or too little, cunningly adopted
As a shrewd disguise.

You are his sworn enemy,
Implacably opposed to everything
You believe he believes.

This is how the battle lines are drawn
In the field, in the metaphorical sand.
No-one must ever cross them
Least of all yourself.

This is how prejudice twists perspective
Till no-one can ever compare a closer look
With your far-off myopic judgment
Your terrifyingly vague impressions.

The enemy, in your mind, lives
Somewhere else; your enemy
Comes from outside; your enemy is
An outsider who lives incognito
Under your sky and who huddles
In your darkest basements.

The enemy of your state;
The enemy in your state of mind exists
To be rooted out, excised and exorcised;
He is your own very precious demon.

How seldom in your gilded hallways
Where the opulence you have assembled
Glistens like well-oiled skin
Like well-burnished, tinted skin
Polished by affluence and acquisition

How seldom does your own reflection
Peek from behind the curlicues of gold
Round the fake rococo elements
Of your fantastic towers.

Otherwise you might see
Your enemy for who he is,
Masked by the cloak of invisibility
In place behind your eyes.

You are sworn to avoid the awkward truth
That all enemies are made in flesh
Blood, sinew, bone with some human thing
Inexplicably woven through.

You and your enemy acrimoniously coexist
Like mutual hallucinations in a dream
He is beside you in your terrible nightmare
In a dissolving world where you fear dislike,
Where no-one acknowledges you were right.

You see the enemy
In every sideways glance
Reflected in windows in the street
In the shiny metal panels
On the rushing flanks of traffic.

You see him in a crowd or standing
With his clownish grin behind a pillar
In your most opulent room.
He is a faceless alien
In the unemployment lines.
He serves in bars and diners.
He is the flunkey, smirking at a counter
As your people prepare your way
Who looks over their heads to catch your eye.
He winks as if to say, I know.
I have seen the lumpish flab
Beneath too-genereous suits. I have seen
The way the wind picks at your hair
Like coarse grass on the shore, yellowing,
Wispish, hopelessly fluttering.

You see your enemy
Because your enemy is real.
He is with you as he is everywhere.
You carry him in the blood you pump
Around your hideously bloated body.

He is with you now.

You are
Your own
Worst enemy.

© BH, 2017

---

It’s a well-worn phrase. And I was thinking of the enemy within. And the rise of Donald Drumpf. So the words came out and images of the tangerine devil multiplied.

I guess it’s a case of, what we fear most has its roots inside us. Not that I expect to see a Mexican or a Muslim explode from the Donald’s chest any time soon. But, yes there’s a kind of paranoid fragility about the man (not a clinical diagnosis, just poetic observation). It oozes (and the Donald does that very well) from his entire demeanor, words, expressions, gestures.

As Framkie Boyle said: “Trump sees anti-choice arguments all the time; the only time he sees an argument for abortion is in a mirror.”.

Ah, the enemy within.

Note: The image is a little mockery I've called 'Trump Ascending in His Golden Tower'.