slow boiling,
thrusting tired reasons
into the weary lap,
insisting that some
small attention
be paid
but, I know better
I know better than to recite
the ancient prayers of martyrdom
it’s better not to read from
the scroll of curses,
raising the dead from tattered ground
it’s best to let them sleep,
and slide into permanent anonymity
one does better not to
not to chant the titles of lesser demons,
not to coax ghosts from crypts,
not to roust the ravenous empty
it is far more desirable
that the accursed names
of behemoth
remain unspoken
it’s incredibly easy
to exceed capacity,
strangled by your excess,
and your soft spot for monsters
let the red soaked ground dry,
give wounds time to heal,
allow the guillotine blade
a moment
to cool down
let the dust of buzz-sawed bones
settle, and fall out of the choking air
let the empty-headed hydra of war
collapse
exhausted from fighting its thousands of
invisible enemies
there has been enough carnage
for one day
there has been
enough
grant the dying wish
of silence
a blessed respite,
blissfully unaware
of your woeful, grinding appellations,
that unendingly unhappy visage,
stained with its frown
and the frost of unyielding winter
this petite quiet,
this dainty truce,
it is so delightfully superior,
to the constant bombardment,
the complaints of directionless bullets
angry shrapnel, with nothing better to do
than to bark at the meaningless winds
of a barren landscape,
where no one ever argued
about arguments
the thirst of your nameless hounds
is never sated
no amount of anything,
anything carelessly mislabeled “justice”
would ever tip your scales,
one way, or the other
your loaded dice fall from the table
on each and every stupid
turn
no bodycount is ever high enough,
there is no number of heads in a basket
that will ever quell your
determined dissatisfaction
ceaseless disapproval
incapable of receiving yes,
trampling all answers into the dirt
happy only to take
an eternal no
and, even then,
only as an affirmation
of the absence
of the affirmative
the reasonless ill will
of your callous armies,
all those unemployed mercenaries,
itching for new enmities
your warfare is unabated,
insufferable,
unattractive
it is a Christmas fucking miracle,
to receive nothing,
nothing at all
©2023 Kevin Trent Boswell
Kevin Trent Boswell 