Orders

Loose-lipped with your darkest secrets,

watching your face morph to seriousness

distorted beyond belief from its truth, soldier proper now

I wanted you at ease,

begged and pleaded

for it to be.

The dancing flames, the setting sun

sky crimson and gorgeous

absorbed by drying eyes,

my corpse starting to rot

thought I was Eurydice, you Orpheus,

but your music was a caterwaul,

my bodily reactions involuntary,

relentless, unforgivingly forced.

You strip away your tools and hide them,

beneath wet Earth and within trees,

the bark chipped and shattered, devoured

and behind in time, I’m on my knees

facing the ground, begging to live,

1930s hat blowing freely through the wind

but I am not so lucky.

Time ahead of now, you pile me with the others,

stacked intimidatingly high,

dead limbs scraping the sky

but unable to escape on

the backs of those clouds,

difficult to tell apart

from the billowing smoke created.

Groups of you look onwards, salivating,

holding matches with muddy hands, mangled nails,

doing what you have to, or that’s the thought pattern.

Waiting to be told you can light

the tree of your own design,

waiting to be told,

waiting to be told to torch this effigy of violence,

statues dedicated to bloody murder,

not so subtle celebrations,

and medals awarded later on for courage

passed down like trophies,

gathered scalps for pay

sell on the medals when times get desperate.

History erased, a mass investment into

lives snuffed out like rank-smelling candles

threatening to dirty the grand table,

daring to disturb the banquet

and you’re just waiting to be told,

silent, waiting to be told.

Those children won’t grow old,

their bodies melted down like gold,

and yet you can’t stop grinning

while you’re waiting to be told,

can’t hold back the pleasure

of fulfilling some purpose

no matter how twisted,

it’s judgement at Nuremberg,

it’s cycling, infinite hurt,

it’s history, dissolving,

beneath dirt,

erasure of humanity

dehumanised dirt.