Lamentations

Few know the true lined face of mars

To charge across the desolation

Bayonets fixed for close quorter...

Sawbacks gleam red perspiration

Who among us would dare...

Dare to walk the killing fields?

The heather that drank the blood of our fathers

And bled from trenches... slashed...

By what authority are we granted peace?

Over dead bodies of the more worthy

More worthy than we

Like the moth, we serve the light blindly

Ever colliding with another servant

Capitulation, resignation

The rot seeps everywhere

Unstemmed tide of ruin

Entropy gathers and engulfs instead

Few know the true lined face of mars

But the lessons of the learned

Drawn from killing and burning fields

Offer a tourniquet to staunch the flow

But we'd rather stand and bleat

Flashes of the storm our only light

Perhaps it's time to burn again