Torn from a nation coming of age,
no more than a child, wide eyed and scared,
thrown into a munitions assembly line in the land of the Morning Calm
repairing cannon-fodder that will be shattered again;
when flesh stands guard between fire and ideals-
in the battle between young flesh and shrapnel-
flesh tears.
In the battle between flesh and blood,
pounding through veins with dizzying speed,
blood screams for escape from the torment within
sprays in a red mist onto a dusty floor as
battle-worn medics with wrenches and saws send weapons back to the line.
Blood is diluted in the blood of every body refurbished,
broken, but still fighting.
Blood will have blood will have blood as
a nation whose birth was in blood brings blood
to a land soaked in blood where blood is divided
from blood, and brothers, divided, are drowning in blood.
In the land of the Morning Calm, an open wound bleeds
and festers and grows as land is lost, and land is gained
and children do battle with brothers, capguns and stones replaced
with rifles and mines.
Far from the front in their ivory towers, academics mutter through a
buffer of theory, politicians talk matter-of-fact about whitewashed numbers
and newspapers report cartoon tales of heroism where everything is
black and white, where wars are absolute, where good must always triumph
over evil; but in the land of the Mourning Calm,
men and women decide, their hands drenched in indelible blood,
whether war can ever be just.
no more than a child, wide eyed and scared,
thrown into a munitions assembly line in the land of the Morning Calm
repairing cannon-fodder that will be shattered again;
when flesh stands guard between fire and ideals-
in the battle between young flesh and shrapnel-
flesh tears.
In the battle between flesh and blood,
pounding through veins with dizzying speed,
blood screams for escape from the torment within
sprays in a red mist onto a dusty floor as
battle-worn medics with wrenches and saws send weapons back to the line.
Blood is diluted in the blood of every body refurbished,
broken, but still fighting.
Blood will have blood will have blood as
a nation whose birth was in blood brings blood
to a land soaked in blood where blood is divided
from blood, and brothers, divided, are drowning in blood.
In the land of the Morning Calm, an open wound bleeds
and festers and grows as land is lost, and land is gained
and children do battle with brothers, capguns and stones replaced
with rifles and mines.
Far from the front in their ivory towers, academics mutter through a
buffer of theory, politicians talk matter-of-fact about whitewashed numbers
and newspapers report cartoon tales of heroism where everything is
black and white, where wars are absolute, where good must always triumph
over evil; but in the land of the Mourning Calm,
men and women decide, their hands drenched in indelible blood,
whether war can ever be just.