A Fragile Peace

A grinding narrative

Set on a razor's edge,

The culmination of a lifetime.

It stutters to a stop

Then crumbles into ruins,

Bones held up by wire.

You don't put

The gun in your mouth

Because you like the way that it tastes.

It's a testament

To the will of man

And the progress we have made.

In a sense

We've done our best

To lay it all to waste.

So cavalier

And so secure

Dressed in our Sunday finest.

A debt we all must pay,

Bit by bit by agonizing

Pieces of ourselves

To warlords and profiteers

All huddled in dark masses,

Xenophobes and killers.

Commercialized regret

Manufactured in the falsest

Pretense of sorrow.

"Those wretched fools,"

you'll think,

"All huddled in dark masses,

Ripe for the taking."

Sycophants and slaves.

Bone soaked in blurry tears,

The matted grey of ashes,

A liturgy on our failings.

Choke down a Eucharist

Of flesh and tinny blood

To find a fragile, fleeting peace.

Crawl back from whence you came, tormentors.

Lie in the bed that you have made.

Suffer the fools in silence,

Let your actions speak for themselves,

Because actions speak for themselves.