Destiny of the Dispossessed
As you flee behind you hear
Your hate filled screaming foes
Pillaging and burning
Their tutored hatred beyond reason
For no reason
Loudspeakers hastily erected amongst the rubble
Play a dirge of victory
As they hold a pyrrhic parade
As you flee to who knows where
North, south, east or west?
Don't know. Don't care
Just away
Unknown lands ahead
There be monsters?
You only hope you've left them behind
As you flee you see the broken crowds
A caravan of the barely living
Some men and children in uniforms
Now just costumes
Clutch their weapons that failed them
The debris of war litter the poisoned earth
Twisted metal entomb twisted flesh
Broken souls pass by
Your town is gone
Your home is gone
Your family - alive or dead - gone
Your life - your past - gone
Your food - the last scrap - gone
Your water - the last drop - gone
Your hope - gone
You have nothing
But you are not nothing
As you flee become the seed
That penetrates a fertile land
And makes it grow afresh
You may fall on stony ground
As many will
As you flee you reach the well meaning camps
A pale shade of existence
Living in forgotten limbo
As you flee strike out to promised lands
Schizophrenic peoples that both welcome and revile
As you join their underclass
A scapegoat for all their ills
Cast aside your skills, your art, your education
And toil and sweat on the work that no-one wants
And when you finally accept this is your lot
Toil and sweat for your children
Who can never understand your struggle, your journey
But carry the seed of your people
Maybe one day they will return home
And rebuild
Entry to the "travel light" contest
Written 12th January 2017
Copyright © Mark Martin | Year Posted 2017
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