Making Memorials

Making Memorials

Cities sink and high seas rise

Along a bootstrap revolt,

Carried high on foamy waves,

Buried low in technology’s

Castaway floating dinghies. 

Nations fall in desert tides,

In tyrants’ post-hazed oil springs,

On sandy, blood-soaked high dunes,

Oil deposits extracted for

West’s hard-wrought hegemonies.

Heroes fight in far off lands,

For branded, post-hoc ideals,

Trading lives for the living,

Securing selves on others’ backs.

Making friends from enemies.

Building fear on dark-soiled brands, 

Making war from tight conflict,

Policing home like afar, 

Choosing justice over peace,

Building rebuilt memories.

Against tyranny,

Against fascism,

Against each other,

Against terror,

Against errors.

For our neighbors,

For our highways,

For our suburbs,

For our machines,

For submachines.

We fight for imperfect selves,

On fronts and flanks and burdens,

Where lives are passed on cast pyres,

Where stateless foes persist on

Post decrepit binaries.

We die for heroic selves,

They die and we call them “we.”

Seeking perfection, trying.

Claiming redemption, crying.

Praising past: contemporaries.