"Mere", murder & murals/What are we doing to help?

 I. Mere / Murder

I've idly wondered what Yeats meant by "mere" here:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world...

"The Second Coming" (written in 1919, after the Great War) came to mind again with out most recent political assassination here in the US*––Charlie Kirk, yesterday (middle name, James, like the Star Trek captain, James Kirk).

So I looked up that use of "mere". Obviously Yeats didn't mean "piffling," but what was the deal?

via English Stack Exchange:

The OED says mere's meaning pure, unadulterated is long obsolete, but absolute, sheer was around in the 19th century. 
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• The word ‘Mere’ means both pure and only,
   and the first section further emphasises the generality and absoluteness of the situation with words such as ‘everywhere’ and ‘all’. 
  
  The ‘Mere anarchy’ which is loosed (by whom?) like a plague or scourge then becomes a tide dimmed by blood, recalling the bloody seas of the Revelation of St John, the flood from the mouth of the serpent and the vials of wrath (Rev 8:8; 12:15; 16:1-4). 

• -- Yeatsvision.com

Well, that makes sense.
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*The BBC reports there've been 150 politically motivated attacks in the US in 2025, so far--twice the number of last year.

Today is the 24th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks. 
These more recent attacks are carried out by our very own, home-grown people. 
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II. Murals 

Meanwhile, murals have been going up here on the busy street by the thrift store that connects the chain of lakes to the Mississippi River. 
They are part of a $8 million project to Beautify Lake Street. 
The already tattered street was further frayed by protests after the murder of George Floyd in 2020. 

Walking the five blocks to the bus stop after work, I took photos of a few of them (there are more!).

Beautiful! 
But in doorways, ravaged people huddle with nothing.

 Waiting at the bus stop eating a tamale, I saw a guy harassing a street walker. She was dressed in something like cling wrap and carrying a piece of birthday cake on a paper plate. 
A cop yelled out the window of his police car stopped at the red light, "Leave her alone!"

The guy muttered something and walked away.

 I thought, I feel like I'm living in the New York City of Midnight Cowboy and Taxi Driver.
 

This morning I had coffee at a nearby gas station--a great local business with a brew-to-order espresso machine--at their picnic table by this little mural--painted during the George Floyd protests:

                                        Yes. 
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III. What are you doing?

I'm going to leave comments on.
I respectfully request no negative comments about Charlie Kirk and his views and his friends.
I expect that all of us who meet at Noodletoon disagree with him and them.
But that’s not the point. That’s not the crime here. 

(Actually, if you agreed with him, 
I would be interested to hear that!)

––Thank you.

I don't want to hear how bad things are. 
I see it too! I hear it endlessly, everywhere.
* * * I do want to hear about what I / we can DO, . . are doing!

How can we harness, how are we harnessing our power of love and light and smarts--politically, spiritually, in whatever CREATIVE, life-giving ways--to stem the blood-dimmed tide?

Above: William Blake, David Delivered Out of Many Waters,
‘He Rode upon the Cherubim’, c. 1805, Tate Gallery, London.

You know, I'm wrapping yarn around sticks to give away.
They are little Ninja stars to throw at the Vile Beast slouching our way. 
 Maybe the VB will stop and play with them.
Or maybe they'll be incinerated in a flash.
Who knows? 
They keep my head above the waters, anyway.

One more William Blake: "Los Enters the Door of Death"

"Los represents the imagination (the name is from sol, Latin for sun)... the soul of the animating principle of everything in this world. 
Los has to enter the door of death many times, taking his light (the sun of fourfold vision) into eternal death, in order to move out of 'single vision'."-- via