In my dreams, a charcoal child.
Sockets empty, drawn limbs crisped.
Horror falls as rain on hate.
Nothing like murder sprouts murder.
From the marrow, black and curling.
So you come calling, weeping, calling.
Instead of a dark lord,
You will have a dark poet.
“Rise,” cry my conjurers, “Rise!”
“Truth is a sword!
“Justice is lightning!
“Rise!”
But kindness is a silent spell.
It is the damned who must cry out.
You murdered dead call forth
Dead murderers from the living.
Through all these ages,
In the cause of Truth, lies.
Lies and skulls and red earth soaking.
In the name of Justice,
Arbitrary nightmare.
Coerced conformity
Our only respite.
Until the day breaks, night pertains.
Until the stream clears, mud obscures.
Until there is peace,
Hatred screams, “Truth!”
Cruelty howls, “Justice!”
Until the murder stops. Stops! STOPS!
Paranoia is reason.
Until we live by sharing, thieves will reign.
Peace, my brothers, is a giving hand,
An open door, a steaming pot.
That social thing that comes
Before the ism, damn you.
Until your mother spoke,
You had no language.
Until your father sang,
There was no song.
Did they make you beg for food?
For clothing?
Did you learn from childhood
Nothing. In my dreams, the charcoal child
Opens new eyes, rises brushing nightmare
Crust away.
When we dregs have learned
To feed our own, wake me,
And ask me for the songs of revolution.