TRINPsite: 'A Quiver Full of Fodder' (poem)

A QUIVER FULL OF FODDER

As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man,
so are conceived the most innocent of nature.
They must fill the quiver to serve the warrior,
fill the ballot boxes to cast divine votes.
The lord of the house who claims them feels happy,
when proudly he takes the babes from his womb;
adds these future instruments of domination
calculatingly to his quiver and boxes.
He points his arrows at the people to be slain,
away from an equality that does not count,
from an equilibrium that has no weight.
Since he is fruitful, he multiplies zealously,
collecting his cannon fodder for times of war,
his electoral fodder for times in between.
These, his soldiers, will fight to their earthly end;
these, his voters, will grow, grow till majority.
And they, they will not stop him,
the naive that blithely feast at his beginning,
the docile that meekly grant him his winning.

Vinsent Nandi
68.LSE-ESW

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Note on his womb (line 6):
the womb may be the woman's womb in the sense of having it as part of the body she has, but her womb is, in the lord's worldview, his womb in the sense of ownership, because she too is (considered) his chattel