War room.

War room.

The news is cold and bloody

The camera takes me there

The intimacy of pain

Revealed on a smartphone

Old men bend beneath the strain

Of their undoing

Feeling shame where none should be

As the rage of war tears healthy children away

Cutting the strings

Falling in disarray, like marionettes

Sorrowed women wail

At the incoherence of the world

How the young are so easily sacrificed

For the sake of a legacy

The hubris of the mighty

Fallen on the shrunken shoulders

Of politburo oligarchs.

The refuse of broken homes

Rubbled streets.

Troubled souls

Covered in dead dust

Ghost across the screen

As the news reporters stumble

In search of a story.

There is no glory

In tyranny

Both sides suffer the indignity

Of loss

Bravery is a false god

Terror is a leveller.

Grief has an enormous appetite

It is a devil of a habit to break

Sometimes it can turn heads

Completely

The righteous can be monsters too.

Decision-making is never easy

When the blood runs high

The starkness of an image

Can feed the need to lay blame

At the feet of an aggressor

Without paying attention

To the history professor

Or to the subtleties of intent.

So much harm caused

With little thought to the consequence.

Spread hate from the safety

Of a war-room

Whilst sipping brandy.

Preach disaster from a pulpit,

Wade through sewage

Without moving from a chair.

Form an argument

Without knowing the rules

Of engagement.

Make a speech,

Pontificate

As in the end

It might be all that is left of freedom.