A plethora of metallic chords
echo bluntly through a
hollow skull. The moonlight
burns many pallid, young
faces as they bathe in pools
of dull light.

Watching, waiting, wanting.
My breathing is shallow and
powerlessly, up here, I sit.
Like a hopeful hawk, I perch.
The shame a hawk feels when
likened to a vulture.

But I won't pick at your bones,
rolling as the Earth explodes
like fireworks. I have no
desire for dead meat, destroyed
by shells and their melancholic
tune or heart strings plucked
like a harp.

Two of you scuttle beneath me,
through the dead and the dirt
like cockroaches, burying into  
the ground.
"So long my sorry friends" says
the hawk as he swoops and
dives to catch his prey.

Some win,
they'll declare a celebration in vocabulary.
Pat yourself on the god-**** back kid.
You went there and committed those
worst of evils.
I was alive in a time of great confusion
and mass hysteria, post WW2
for 60 years, and they still
haven't put out those fires.
Yeah, some success you have here,
that machine burns just to burn.
Perpetuates for perpetuation.
The purpose has become
redundant, in and of itself.

Stress on their brows and iron in their gait.
They exhale smoke like factories.
Extra arms, and packed in like ants.
Soldiers **** innocent people.
They call themselves "warriors",
and here they've become talked up
to the positions of saints and angles.
Deified.
Soldiers **** children.
With lightning at their fingertips
and thunder on their breath.
Our unfettered support into
death and those who would
perpetuate it.
In the name of God and Country.
******* idiots. We're all ******* idiots,
and we can't tell our ***** from our elbows,
but you know what makes sense?

Sharp rocks mark my skin
Ice water fills my boots
There is a distinctive high whine
followed by a deafening explosion
4 dead
7 injured
The screams and shrieks
of men
who feel like boys
calling for their mother
or for a god
are drowned out by the
fast paced “clickclickclick”
13 dead
10 injured

We put our boys on the ground
Enemies all around
Shooting their rounds

Get in cover!
They said to each other
To wait till it was over

Such a death toll
Mothers heart with empty hole
Was not a real goal

Stop the bleeding
Quit receding
no retreating

Man made
serenade
Watch out
Grenade!

They painted the earth shades of red:
The color of apples, shining proudly as they grow.
The deep color of wine, swirling in a crystal glass, staining the lips of a young woman.
The color of blood, dripping from the bodies of a hundred men, their bodies laying out in a field, their souls.. Who knows?

But the Earth was now different shades of red, and all of these lives were lost. Mothers lose their titles, a little girl whose father will never tuck her in at night, and a soul mate lost to those who waited and waited for his or her love to come home.

All these lives lost. It seems so terrible. But where there is loss, there is gain.

A nation free. A mother who can beam with pride, for her son was a hero. A little girl who will grow up and tuck her own daughter in one day, and for those who lost their lovers? They are free because of the sacrifices made. They are alive because of love. They can live to tell everyone that these soldiers painted the earth red, the color of their hearts.