FOR THE UNSUNG MAIMED AND DEAD

     FOR THE UNSUNG MAIMED AND DEAD—2015

On the ragged edge of brittle time, the paddle of life

Plays ping pong minuets of war and peace.

Yesterdays’ enemies have now become today’s allies;

And old war buddies are now the worst of new enemies.

In the crucible of chaos, deception brews its frothing tease,

Intoxicating self-clamed martyrs drunk on the flowing blood

Of self and that of the collateral innocent—demonized martyrs,

Screaming cries of sacrilege of God’s name and all that is good.

Smiling despotic power mongers spit into the faces of the discontent;

And slowly snips away at the knotted net of the morality of humanity.

How much longer will the world watch in the distance,

merely crying shame?

Indeed, ‘how much longer…before we heed the plaintive pleas

of the unnumbered dead and maimed…?’

Let this world not be mocked by procrastination’s scythe of time; nor

by the silent anvils of despair; or

by the silent fatigue of apathy.

Rather, let renewed hammers of love, justice and righteousness ring down

a new world order of the fatherhood of God;

a new world order of the brotherhood of man;

a new world order of the motherhood of peace.