The More Things Change... (Prompt: Better Than It Was)
Free verse. I don't know where the hell it came from. I just typed. X-posted to linebyline.
The More Things Change...
We look at the sky
On New Year's Eve
Fireworks going off
With whistles and screams
Like bombs in far-off countries,
And the cries of refugees
And the crumbling ruins
Of buildings
More ancient than we can imagine
Blowing away
In mists of blood and dust.
We look at the sky
And we see, shining bright
The stars that have
Looked down on us
Cold
Indifferent
Ever since
We huddled in caves
And tents of beast-hide
Praying in fear
To nature-spirits
To spare the tribe
From animals
From enemies
From the elements.
And we loved and we hated
And we killed and we wept
And nothing
Has really changed since then.
The bombs that ravage countries far away
Drive people back into the hills,
Into the caves
Into the wild
As tear-streaked refugees.
And we call
Our superstitions
"Religious truth"
And say that everyone else is wrong
That's why we need bombs.
It's New Year's Eve
Another chapter in the book
Of Civilization
(What Revelations?)
The pages turn,
The slate wiped clean,
And we count down
And we pray
For humanity,
For maturity,
For peace;
For things, one day,
To be better than it was then,
And now.
And still the bombs scream like fireworks and celebration
Lighting the sky with coal-orange devastation.
The More Things Change...
We look at the sky
On New Year's Eve
Fireworks going off
With whistles and screams
Like bombs in far-off countries,
And the cries of refugees
And the crumbling ruins
Of buildings
More ancient than we can imagine
Blowing away
In mists of blood and dust.
We look at the sky
And we see, shining bright
The stars that have
Looked down on us
Cold
Indifferent
Ever since
We huddled in caves
And tents of beast-hide
Praying in fear
To nature-spirits
To spare the tribe
From animals
From enemies
From the elements.
And we loved and we hated
And we killed and we wept
And nothing
Has really changed since then.
The bombs that ravage countries far away
Drive people back into the hills,
Into the caves
Into the wild
As tear-streaked refugees.
And we call
Our superstitions
"Religious truth"
And say that everyone else is wrong
That's why we need bombs.
It's New Year's Eve
Another chapter in the book
Of Civilization
(What Revelations?)
The pages turn,
The slate wiped clean,
And we count down
And we pray
For humanity,
For maturity,
For peace;
For things, one day,
To be better than it was then,
And now.
And still the bombs scream like fireworks and celebration
Lighting the sky with coal-orange devastation.