Sorrow in Gehenna

Dark hot winds carress withering flesh,
Soul contortions across the map, breathless
From every breeze, from every atrocity.

Who saves countries from the failings of empire?
Who provides the crippled larks with healing shelter?
Who will slaughter the patriots, free the wage-slaves?

Not the wicked piper singing hosannahs between verses,
Not the eager whipwielder sharing a passion for pain,
Not the sly seller of dreams stripping still living bodies.

There’s a hero but he’s busy in an alley getting a handjob.
There’s a stalwart but he’s grown stout with soft living.
There’s a jerk who’s perfect, he doesn’t care at all.

It’s a new morning where late the sweet birds sang,
It’s a glory train going over a trembling trestle,
It’s a righteous blade, consecrated, thirsty, bare.

Half-lidded eyes devour sere fields without mercy,
Drinking in the sundew remaining on the stubble,
Sustaining on pain, fear and induced corruption.

Do not weep for the wounded heart of the body politic,
Do not loose anger randomly in frustrated bursts,
Do not harrow barren fields nor water the lifeless dust.

Stoke these fires, bank the embers, prepare the wood.
Turn the wheel and do not look away:
The mystery is not in what has been lost,
It is in what will grow in the empty places.

November 5, 2004
© 2005, wordlackey for php