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In the Shadow of the Flag

The seed of war is planted, it is furrowed deep into the brow
beneath the cunning share of the patriotic plow.
It germinates a passion that sends out abberated roots,
nourished with propaganda, and weeded of the truth.
It’s fertilized with rhetoric and watered with lies that brag
of  bumper crops of victory in the shadow of the flag.

The crop is cultivated out on battlefields to bloom
where it’s pollinated with shrapnel beneath a harvest moon.
The cycle’s now completed and as when growing season ends,
beliefs begin to wither, commitments begin to bend
and the fruit of life, so lush and ripe now begin to sag,
then drops down to caress the ground in the shadow of  the flag.

Now comes a time of gleaning of the bounty of the yield;
that residue of victory that is lying in the field,
to the delight of maggots that ballet through the flesh
of a body riddled battlefield freshly blessed in death,
to the hum of ecstasy from the flies that zig and zag 
above the bounty of the harvest in the shadow of the flag.

warcouplet

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