Like Poison Food My Race Has Loved

God called the young soldier to heaven that day,

and it rained so hard the sky shielded him from light

and made the others find his name

among the mud huts and the rain.

No, no, my son would not die in the madness you say,

he loved to run forward and fight for country

like one fights for love and life and tomorrows,

as if country holds these dear to its bosom.

How now would he feel, in the sand-scattered place

where he fell to the ground and cursed the pain,

as only a pain, as a pain that would pass,

and yet it did not, and bled him dry?

Duty and hope, like a brew handed out

to bring stout hearts to bear on an earth,

whose absorbent soil cares not for one’s birth,

and the gods of confusion one hears in a shout.

Wars and wars and the smiling faces

that man the trenches and write poems

to the rare places they desecrate so quickly

when orders are given and reasons seem real.

And remember the date, the date of our reason,

the date when dark men flew souls into concrete

and started the spiral of invective and vengeance

and hearts flew out windows to began a new season.

The grit and blood of conquest gives medals and coffins,

yet we’re no witness to all that transpires

since truth is too brutal to hold and embrace us,

and so we are left with our dreams and inventions.

Take me over to the hot sands of battle,

where old men and young see truth in destruction,

and prayers offered up form a chorus of agreement

that death is a pleasure and life is a demon.

This “God” of ours, all “ours” the earth consumes,

this being holding out his gracious hand to give

a blessed reason for the blood that’s shed,

I curse and cast away like poison food my race has loved.