The General

“Elegant isn’t it? The orchestra of war,”

Sang the General as he crushed skulls beneath his feet.

The horizon exploded in a jubilee of heat, and thought the General:

“I the composer, for I guide and flourish in all that is war,

But there must be more, more, than bathing in a bloody shore.”

He walked past the countless cemeteries,

Past the ruined monasteries,

Past the forests of charred trees, past the skeletons

Praying on their broken knees.

Up a jagged cliff above the blackened seas,

To a stone dish, filled with seeds.

“To the fore-fathers of war, Odysseus,

Caesar, Lincoln, Hitler, Truman,

I am the last of our kin.

I have no heir, nor an enemy to fear.

For the first time my mind is clear,

We the lions of our people, were made to end the war,

But none have walked out of his Cave have we?

 Truth we have failed to see,

So I stand on my hands by the sea

For the maker knows

 There is no war without Generals.”

And the General slit his throat into the bowl,

His blood feeding the seeds, and there grew flowers

And there grew trees, and his body turned stone.

On that cliff grew “Lincoln” and “Jesus” roses,

And so ended the only war ever known,

Because the Reaper reaped what was sown.