O! If we triumph what does it mean?
Shall we remedy the affliction of the people
Or masquerade it about in some tawdry dance?
(The bleak reflection, the tepid, the shallow, the lesser of…)
Before we fill the house with glee...
Let us see to it that it is clean,
That the writhing spineless beasts
Can no more devour our very streets
With their dismal recipe of white hunger.
Let us regard each of them alone,
Not for their shade or for the ground they prowl
Where the filthy paws stir the stale vessel
With the infected hunger of money and war,
But for what they bring to peace.
O! Victory shall only come when we are free!
Not in power’s worship, but the love of people
Triumphant in the acquaintance and joy of liberty,
When every liar and thief is bent upon their soiled knees...
Before we fill the house with glee.
Copyright © 2006 mrp / thepoetryman
Arranging a dainty battle hymn to chant and howl
Like beasts in a cave.
We must manage to seize our exhausted throats
And find the pale cord that binds our hand
To tyranny’s slave.
We must slice away tender flesh to free ourselves
Of this creature of our most casual weakness;
Safety before liberty.
We’ve but little time to right this maddening plunge
Else the noise next we will hear shall be that of
The country’s elegy.