To Hell with the Dogs of War!

To Hell with the Dogs of War

 

Wildfire days,

Beneath the blooded screams of a bludgeoned era,

A mob of egotistical bears and intellectual lambs

Clumsily fumble with the layered intricacies

Of puzzle-box philosophies and shotgun barbarisms,

Seeking new ways to conquer without openly killing,

And smile without flashing their monstrous incisors.

 

You and I made mad love on a midnight bed

Of red passionate flowers and soft green wishes,

Airborne dandelion seeds clinging to, and tickling

Our skein of wet skin and flamboyant spirit,

While, overhead, the clouds were set aflame,

Underfoot, our sacred gods were trampled

By jackbooted jackanapes quickstepping

From church service to bloodbath black mass,

With no transitional formalities; no moral dilemmas;

Just rabid finger-puppets and malevolent worker droids,

Pounding and pumping away at unnamed victories

That will eventually be attributed to rich men

In pompous robes, whose riotous mouths could cut

Through mountains and roach-stomp entire cities

Without ever gaining a callous or collecting a scar.

 

But, we have already decided to be the misfits

Of this rotten circus; conscientious objectors

Built of earnest love and gentle deed.

We’ve balled into an impenetrable stone;

An eternal boulder rolling downhill through time

And space, unsullied by the filth of societal

Murder and overzealous, despotic overlords,

We have, and continue to refuse the offers

Of peace via strangulation and birdcaged Liberty.

 

Even as your hateful flames are pressed to our faces,

Even as the sky rains metallic shards of malicious wills,

Even as fancy words dribble acid into our confused eyes,

We will not loosen the embrace or flinch our stone grips.

You may wrap us in your sweatshop flags and bloodied banners,

But we will never eat the poisonous soup of false patriotism.

You may force us to march to a cadence of well-told lies,

But your robotic voices will never come from our mouths.

You may lock us up in stucco walls and metal pods,

But we will not turn from our wild ways; we will never

Forget how wide open the sky seems;

We will never honor your lines in the sand

Or back down from your bulldog pulpits.

 

We are free,

Not because we were told so by our tenders,

But, because we were formed that way.

We are peaceful,

Not because it looks better on TV,

But, because hatred is alien to our souls,

We are strong,

Not because of words on paper or phallic monuments,

But, because we were forged

Through generations of hellfire struggle;

Our faces are of petal and dew,

But, our innards are of fire and rock.

 

We will never belong to you.

We will never be leashed by you.

 

And, you may slit our throats,

But, our winged songs will echo

In hammer falls and page turns,

Our scripture will be spray painted

On boxcars and bridges,

Our mischievous laughter will roll

Through the Valley of the Shadow of Death,

In tsunamis of fistless rebellion

Until all humanity rolls back into the sea

Forever.

Reviews

[roarke]

First I'd have to quote every line here as memorable....
Second this is a long piece that sets a pace and reaches a climax, classic and well done.
Third, I like the heroic timbre, the triumphant voice, the reveling in the realization of wildfire days, that flame again and again from the embers of past voices....

the other part that makes this work is the transitional movement from the first two stanzas, into the third and it rises up through to the end. A kind of Les Misérables operatic touch.... brave stuff, courageously written.

[Backlight Burner]

Wow!!!