MAN OF PEACE

What is the price of peace, my friend
What will you willingly pay for it?
Let's not rock neither boats, nor cradles;
Peace at any price is bloody, so let's
Not disturb the souls of the dead,
Or the yet to be born. Oh no, not I.

Peace does not sound clarion calls
In empty halls spattered with the crimson blood
of innocents; none are innocent in a war of lunatics.
And all your gnashing and wailing cries in the dark
Fall on deafened ears and ghostly eyes,
While you preach brother love
And hold out Lotus blossoms,
And pray to your gods for mercy.

You will sacrifice your Firstborn and your Last,
Your mother and your brother in your eternal quest;
Your neighbours, and your friends,
As a means to all bad ends. Oh no, not I.

Peace will stand in effigy, with whispers and cries
of the souls of those confounded dead.
And when the sound of the last baby's cry turns
The sky to red, and muffled, gnashing agony of weepings
Rents the earth beneath your unclad feet, while
I have blood on my hands. I'll deny, 'Oh no, not I.'

I am a man of peace.


(c)Gwen Beauregard (12.24.10)