An ancient church
complete with two bell towers
and a large nave;
the outside walls have corroded
and are covered with
an aeon’s worth of spider webs
and long dead ashen moss
giving the appearance of
stringy coral;
surrounding the church
are smooth short tombstones
black onyx that extends
as far as the eye can see;
the sky above –
a drab haze charcoal
yet when one looks
at just the right angle
one can see
the church still glows
a white aura.
With a grudge against his family
a mentally troubled man stands
and is judged by the people
who fear they see in his dark soul
a shadow of themselves.
An ancient man
with a large smooth head
whose eyes have disappeared
as his skin has grown over them
wears a ruff made of stone
and a gold ring in one ear;
his face cracks.
Withering criticism faces
an equally hash response
ignorant and totally misleading.
In an empty battlefield
from yesteryear
near a place
where unnamed boy soldiers
were buried en masse
a vision appears
of baby faces
amidst bones and shrapnel
a sad face warns us
and begs us
for a future
it can’t have.
A large-scale military exercise
coincides with
a deadline to a counter-offer;
a commander of ground forces
challenges nations to decide
to swap blood, sweat
and uranium tears.
– matt at shadow of iris
