Note: A poem about… see if you can figure it out.

Women wail as warlords waste,
Lusts of flesh with cold steel embraced,
Stomachs torn for birthless babies,
Blood for dead men who know life’s taste.

Death we tasted, and death we bring,
To foreigners, soldiers, and tyrants in junction,
Three to be drunk from even where they fall,
Monsters the greater for their lesser corruption.

Men work the fields that their families may eat,
Then sit to sup upon stones,
Not bread, their conqueror’s burning the grain,
while we gnaw on brother’s bones.

Sun shines on dresses rent and torn,
Sun gilds the children likewise ripped,
Sun glints on men God’s blessed with wealth,
While we stand, just- condemned, in darkness.

Our sins are known, our sins are sung,
Our sins are daemonic in taste.
We waited for decades, and we called upon Deo,
And we fell to death without haste.

Blood, rich and red, blood, flowing like wine,
From living casks burst free,
Rip, tear, like they’ve done to your wives,
To your sister, your mother, all three.

You say we should pray; we prayed as they rotted.
“A call to the Lord, a call,”
Our calls were answered in blood and in rape,
We did not to impatience fall.

Faith, though cross burns us, faith
We will hold unbroken.
Lord in heaven, damn not our kin,
Our evil went unspoken.

“Are we damned?” we ask; the priest dies regardless,
Gorged on sweetmeats, gold, and whores,
Like his masters in answer, in deed, and in fate,
We stand, we hope, on better scores.

“Are we damned?” we ask; the wife dies regardless,
Skin drawn on her bones like a tent,
Unlike us, we fear, in end and in home,
We will, we hope, that high ascend.

“Are we damned?” we ask; the lord dies regardless,
Trimmed, glittered, and golden,
Too like us, we fear, in doing and being,
We now, we hope, will embolden.

Damned or delivered, dust or dead-walk,
Blood of the tyrant will flow,
Over our lips, under our armor,
And crescented swords fall low.

Men armed with steel would condemn our decision,
While we, armed with wood, are slaughtered.
We saw no choice, we saw no salvation,
What else above kin ever mattered?

God, we implore thee, though by rights we should deplore thee,
Are we yours still or ever?
Can we call upon you though our flesh will burn?
Do not from your mercy us sever.