Innocence
Knows no boundaries
Knows no hatreds
Knows no wars
But it is not all coy smiles
Happiness wrapped
In a best friend’s warm arms
Even the innocents
Know hunger
Even the innocents learn fear
I would wrap these two up
Protect them from such lessons
But mine is the world
They should learn
To fear
The world men made
The world men maintain
A world not made
For innocence
Their glory assured
Set against their own int’rests
Willing sacrifice
War’s wretched slaughter
For lambs sent into mayhem
Fear held in dead eyes
Remains laid to ground
With white crosses row on row
Power’s martyred souls
I reflect
On battlements
And palaces
And understand
We’ve come not so far
As we believe
Today
This wall is both beautiful
And a reminder of that time
We battle through it
We quell the uproar
We resolve the confusion
We overcome
And it feels good
Even in the midst
Of the worst of times
These are the best of times
So I wonder how it is
We fail to acknowledge
Just how much
We love a good war
We are a species
Of adrenaline junkies
Bent on our own destruction
Because it makes us feel alive
Driven to despair
By the shepherds
Of fear
Reeking of the violence
Wrought by anger
And the platitudes of righteousness
I remember
And I write
Words seeking time
In some future dream
When the Flanders torch
Shall not be passed
We will no longer ask
The young to die
For causes wrought
Upon the lie
Of righteousness
A time when poppies bloom
In their rightful spring
Not this remorseful
Autumnal rite
No longer red
No blood be spilled
But lovely white
Our peace fulfilled
Pix to Words 