Fresh Graves

Bells of morning
Stifle peasant cries
Of dreadful forlorning 

Dig another grave
Before another dies
All are unsafe 

One after another
All dropping dead
Child and mother 

Side by side
Fresh graves crater
A beautiful hillside 

We can not
Dig fast enough
To burry this lot 

We’re running low
On graves for
The bodies thrown 

What massive act
Of immoral sin
Could cause this attack? 

The criminal cause
Is plainly obvious:
Our own flaws 

But what’s one
More fresh grave
For another son? 

If left uncontrolled
We’ll all be claimed
By death foretold 

But we can’t
Become another casualty
From our own effect? 

We’re already saved
If we died
Who’d dig these graves?

Incoruptable Truth-The Lady or the Tiger

I wrote this after reading the short story “The Lady or the Tiger” by Frank R. Stockton. The main plot tells a story about a king who devised a system of justice in which the deffendent would choose between two doors to decide if he was guilty or inoscent. Behind one door stood a lovely woman, and if he chose that door he would be married to her at once and set free. But if he chose the other door, he would be devoured by a wild tiger and obviously proven guilty.

Once upon the yesteryear,
Lived a pleasant king and his subjects
Who equally shared in their semi-barbaric behavior
Their lavish lives and lifestyles
Were strongly influenced
By their distant neighbors of many miles. 

The ruling king enjoyed a simple life
And kept his citizens in line
Save a few who had mixed the law with strife.
To judge their intolerable deeds
He created a system of justice
With which all were greatly pleased. 

Some would say his ingenious plan
Was borrowed from forerunners
But he was surely quite the innovating man.
This new agent of poetic enforcement
Met the accused with a blissful innocence
Or a bloody mortal internment. 

Behind one door of chance
Stood a sing fair maiden
And the opportunity of freedom not lance.
Behind the other, however,
The accused would be used
To satisfy both justice and hunger 

Weather eaten or married
The trial would be settled
And to punishment or reward, the plaintiff be ferried.
The townsman gave out a jovial cheer
For the truth and the just
And this new system of trial that drove out all criminal fear.

Now it happened the king of semi-barbarisism
Had a young daughter like himself
Who shared in his many uncivilized isms.
This young fair maiden
Was part of a love interest
That was kept very well secret and hidden. 

But one day this young man was caught
And sentenced to justice
Leaving the princess fairly distraught.
He was accused of loving a girl far from his bounds
And would marry another and gain freedom
Or be eaten alive if guilty by fate he was assuredly found. 

The young girl in question
Had found what lie behind the doors
And had managed to avoid in due suspicion.
When it came time for the trial of the accused
She silently indicated
The door her young man should choose. 

The young princess had many a reason
To choose the young man devoured
Or let him be married to a woman of treason.
But the choice that she made
Will never be known
But this boy’s young life in her hands it was laid. 

For ourselves the decision is already known
But the answer we choose
Can accurately show the person into which we have already grown.
So was it freedom or fire
That the boy’s fate was chosen
Was it the lady or was it the tiger?

War with the Adversary

This day has come too soon
My world is crashing down all around me,
The smoldering remains of my life blown away by a tender breeze,
And there is nothing to be done!
No way to stop the fighting,
No way to end the casualties of this once distant war.
I feel helpless, a mindless puppet of the Adversary. 

Long before this day I was running free
And trying desperately just to flee
From the encroaching tide and burning skies.
Foolishly I thought I could never be caught
I thought I could always remain just outside His reach,
But I could not deny the growing strength of the Adversary. 

Then I stalled just long enough to look back,
Only for the briefest of moments to see the destruction caused by His war path,
But that was all He needed.
Hot lead sliced through and ripped me to shreds before I even heard the crack
Cut down in the prime of existence and left to die,
Nothing more than food for the Adversary. 

That shot echoed through my skull,
But I picked up and ran as if it had never happened.
I couldn’t even see the dripping blood,
I couldn’t even feel the never ending wounds.
I didn’t even know the enemy was poring across our borders,
And soon we were all captives of the Adversary. 

Soon I realized how pointless it was to keep running,
It hurt too much to even move.
All I could do was lie down and take the beating.
It never occurred to me that I still held my weapon,
I never thought I could fight back,
I didn’t think I could ever win the war with the Adversary. 

I saw those closest die on this very field
I thought this fight would never touch me,
I believed I could stay.
Fleeting thoughts that have long since vanished.
Now I find myself engulfed by a world in flame.
My breath is ragged from running to get away from this fight.
No matter how far I retreat, I am still surrounded on all sides by the Adversary. 

I can’t recognize my own reflection,
With a twisted expression tortured deep from within.
I don’t know my own hands anymore.
They once belonged to someone great?
That man has long since died on this field of war.
I have forgotten who I am in this burning world,
Lost in the war with the Adversary. 

I am fighting a losing battle,
I can not win this struggle on my own accord
I was foolish to think it was possible
The only option left is to pray and wait.
Pray that I will live long enough to see the end of this bloody war,
And wait until the day when my Ally arrives,
That day will be the last day of the war with the Adversary!

Deep Scars and Dark Holes

When you’re surrounded, outnumbered, out of luck
When you’re full of deep scars and dark holes
And when you have no more nerve and you’re out of pluck
Stay put; don’t leave your fox hole 

When the sky is crumbling around your ears
When you’re staring into Death’s cold chalky face
And when you’re swallowed whole by your darkest fears
Don’t even think about slowing your pace 

When the stress is crushing your bones against the stones
When you’re so close yet so far away
And when your last ounce of strength has been chucked out and blown
You have to realize that this is the only way 

When the alternative is not the farthest from your mind
When unrelenting pain washes over you like a flood
And when you’re held down by His constricting bind
Don’t drown your own sorrows in blood 

When you’re deserted and abandoned in a barren waste
When your last living ally has flown
And when you’re lost and without a home or a place
Remember that you never stand alone