The Politics of War
To ask a flower to kill a bee
is to ask a man to become the beast.
That is the will of war
The skylark rages it’s voice above the battlefield
For destiny lies below.
No argument with this world ,
but a foreign invader has entered his field.
The song of life is threatened.
The immigrant guns have freedom of movement,
they scream a betrayal of life.
The seeds of the poppy are in turmoil,
the sound of the shells
replaces the tractors of life.
And in this chaos the poppy symbol is born,
in a reluctant will of sacrifice.
Innocence of poppy will dull man’s pain,
but nothing is real.
War belongs to foreign shores
for English tea must not be disturbed.
And history will prostitute these red petals
in the hope that we will remember them.
Remember a moment in time,
a dream that flows in atoms unseen.
This speck of man within the cosmos.
A vote of no confidence in God,
for eternity is a lonely place.
Mortals and ghosts remember them.
Remember the soldier who sang down this road of despair,
who marched on a foreign soil.
Made proud under the willow by glorious woman
and prayed for by siblings to come.
Made ripe by a glorious English summer.
Victory is a tinsel thing.
War salivates for the fools and the brave.
The devil is on the move
groaning in his ****** of pain,
that spills this cup to quench the end.
And the streets of home will be swept clean
By the invalid that saw them die
Yesterday’s confetti, this mush that blows in the wind
gathered by a broken man,
smoking his last park drive.
And when the misty morn greets the milkman.
Fear of nations will give a copper pension,
a loaf of bread for a young man’s life
and a bugle to let the devil know,
“these souls are out of bounds“.
Copyright © Steven Cooke | Year Posted 2016
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