The March...

Do you hear the drum beating loudly on the screen of our TV’s?
Just as they have before, well, sort of, and as they surely will again.
The pervasive beat of one mans cadence, in a two man stand off.
To be sure, more is at stake than just the lives of Bush and Saddam,
they are not facing off in a boxing ring, no matter how much we’d prefer it.

Stand up and be counted, though both sides will discount it –
This beat getting stronger needs the healing power of peace
before this becomes something longer.
Can you hear the beat as sure as that of your heart?
Place your hand there, feel it, I assure you, an Iraqi’s beats the same,
he bleeds too, blood, not oil,
though sometimes our leaders make it seem that way.
Behind the scorching rhetoric of this economic war machine –
How many will die?
How many will die?

The beat goes on, as the expression states,
I can hear it, feel it at the very core of my being,
my retinas permanently damaged by the rape of the planet,
of each and every one of us by mad men –
Smoke billowing into the sky like skid marks, devastating,
carried away to return as God’s tears,
what goes up must and will come down.
Where do we go from here?
Where does this beat take us,
Where will we all be?
Will we again see the night sky lit up? –
Stars drowned out by mans fire flies,
trying to take down the screaming eagles, an ominous sight –
Day at night –
Who really wins?
Who has nothing to lose?
How do you know what to believe when greed so often dictates,
unopposed,
what truth is?

How many times,
how many must we plot this course?
How long before we realize the road less traveled while difficult
has a lot less dead bodies strewn across it.
That road,
a path to peace through dialogue.

SDM