War

Strident pronouncements from the
pulpit of state
proclaiming superiority,
demanding loyalty,
stirring the shimmering
caldron of fear,
a tsunami of emotions
assaulting the senses.

War grinds on
poking desperate holes in
the fabric of reason.

Humans stand astride
the abyss of the damned
and plunge without reluctance
into the chaos of their own making.

War shreds humanity
under the staggering weight
of bountiful corpses
left bloodless,
discharged from the living
in a torrent of metal and fire.

Cycles of endless violence and
retribution,
falling upon the sharpened spikes
of hatred
ignorance
fear.

War glorifies pointless death
upon the altar of
the unrelenting darkness

I mourn for all the pointless death,
for the gravestones piled high upon
the beleaguered hearts of all the mothers
who have wept over the ashes
of their vanquished children.

Wars’ hollow victories
give succor to the void
and offer the promise
of future grief upon the bones of
fractured peace.

I mourn for needless suffering,
for the compendium of horrors,
for the blood and sinews of the
armies of victims who
fall to the earth so thoroughly broken.

War is carnage
unredeemed by the rhetoric of
shallow righteousness or
the politics of punishment and retribution.

I long for a time when peace is
no longer a sentiment
reserved for the prophets,
not just a word used on
special occasions,
not simply a sweet turn of phrase
laced within the rhetoric of
the politics of deception,
but a way of being
within the substance of humanity.