The enemy arises
from withered pages
So long ago
silent, stealthy warfare brought
a new world of antipathy
Stirred within the ego’s walls
Here where poisoned raindrops fall
on cobblestones of pedantry
that none could ever see

He wears a mask designed
on all these years of bigotry
A pretender’s antidote
to diseases of antiquity
In deepened caverns dark eyes gleam
Being nothing like he seems

Their paper-mache passions
Spitting words upon the broken floor
Are well rehearsed but may as well
be in a language foreign
so alien to us all
For even as our sharp invective falls
we make no sense at all

The prophecy was clear
from peace the darkness rises
full of cheap deceit
and worthless prizes
One for every child
So none may see the coma
into which we all may fall

‘It is not that at all!’
they may yet cry
to the yellow, growling
but still indifferent sky
The time has come for battle cries
But fat, defeated we arise
Pathetic, wounded before the battle
even has begun

Make no mistake
No accident has brought us
to this worthless crossroads
The genius of the enemy is this
He came to soothe our worried minds
with entertainment unrefined
So making all of us so blind
till we stumble in the wind
and twist within the gyre

Broken children trembling,
reciting words we have been taught
uselessly preaching
our very higher natures captured
in confusion to bring us down
and leave us reaching
for a home too long gone
and our country non existent
under his cruel, implacable sun

(c) Helen Valentina 2016