Evilification — Summary

hate in the abstract contracts into a tired road

and we shut up unthank the dust riding us

no news is what what we have done to the enemy

but that the enemy own little purpose

Show the whole poemHide the poem

Learn Poems app

Try the Learn Poems app

Everything from the website trainer, and more: new exercises, voice recording and sharing, reminders, quick review.

The title is a made-up word, and it fits a poem about how we turn people into something purely evil. The opening lines suggest that hate, when it stays abstract, doesn't blaze up. It shrinks into "a tired road," something worn and dull that we just keep walking. The speaker and the others around them fall silent, and the odd phrase "unthank the dust riding us" hints at a weary refusal to be grateful for the grime that clings to them.

The final stanzas are harder to pin down, and the grammar seems deliberately broken. "No news / is what what we have done / to the enemy" can be read as saying we've erased the enemy from view, leaving nothing to report. The stumbling repeated "what" adds to the sense of someone struggling to say it. The last lines suggest the enemy has little purpose of its own, as if it exists mostly because we need it. The mood is flat, tired, and quietly uneasy, more a numb recognition than an angry outburst.

Read also

More by Dave Bonta

All poems
ContemplativeDave Bonta

Plea bargain

I hear half a beat of drum to serve time have half a hope in the meantime praise God
DreamyDave Bonta

Cibola 3

I awake in the dark and shake free of sheets & blankets, of down-filled quilt. The rituals of waking– the long, hot shower, the coffee–give
ContemplativeDave Bonta

In good light

On a maple’s pale bark, a zigzag ladder—old tooth-marks from a wandering snail? Green islands of moss