Lamentations of the Battlefield

The paths to Golgotha
mourns profusely; the flowers
moaning for a widowed city.

Brick of bones,
unsunk wells of blood are
all that remains of that city that
was once a leviathan in the hill country

These men overshadowed by their
insatiable thirst for blood
and voracious appetite for virgin flesh
plunge deep into horrific martyr of someone’s child,
the child’s mother, the mother’s father. Not one escapes!

Warring with their dreams
those days were just bayonets and sabers.
Warring with their dreams
these days come with dreamy artillery and cannons –
scavenging the red gore; blackening it,
scavenging the yellow skin; blackening it.

Warring with their dreams makes
a colour meant to be that of life
a flag for bulk interment.
Did their mothers fail;
Did their fathers neglect their duties
in telling them that every day at battle
is like a chasing of shadows?

If redness we must have
let it be the redness of the sun
not blood stains of winceyettes.
If solemn songs we must have
let it be the epic hymns of the Cathedral
not dirges in remembrance of those gone.
If wars we must have, let it be against the Devil
even then, we have One who fights for us.