Uncivil War.

Uncivil War.

In a quiet wood

As the apple blossom falls

The sun setting, bloody red

Dancing shadows play,

Filtered through low-hung branches

A myriad of flaming petals

Spiralling through a heat haze

Where nobody has wandered

These past one hundred years,

Cock an ear,

The sound of ancient laughter lingers

Old songs, sung by travellers and tinkers

The burned embers of campfires, long gone

The blood of wounded soldiers

Who sought to make a stand

Soaked into the ground

How strongly grow the trees

Upon their painful sacrifice.

Pinched faced men

Who never saw the error of their ways

Demanding respect as a birthright.

As one war ends a new one ignites

From beneath its burning embers

Raggle-taggle new model armies

Born to be invisible,

Barricades, built anew.

Listen, as the old woods ring

With the sound of war machines

Love songs and laments

The lullabies of careworn youths

Barely old enough to find the need to shave

Remembering the colour

Of the wallpaper in the nursery

Crying out for their mothers’ arms

Their first loves’ charms

Never do we wander far

Without trying to find a way back home.

Trees grow along the banks of winding rivers

Seeming to march with the flow

A line of ancient warriors

Guardians of the newfound way

Carrying us forward

Marking out a grave return

There was never any sight of freedom

Just an oft-repeated promise, rarely born as true

When so many men

Are expendable

And others, all but strangers passing through,

Unaware of obligation

Unwilling to be cast as custodians or caretakers,

Refusing to adopt a role

As a curator, creator

Redeemer or saviour.

Even as they give their blood.