Love v. War

Some of the best things in life

operate at extremes

of beauty and terror

with minimal margins

for bullshit and error,

as do some of the worst.

Exhibit, the first:

love v. war.

A race which can never be won,

only lost,

for our very participation

invites the visitation

of self-devastation,

of endogenous cataclysm.

The indigenous prism

caught modernity's anti-light,

producing a spectrum of neuroticism —

from the Left to the Right,

hues of madness paint the skies

as sense and compassion

are forcibly excised.

This psychic surgery,

this paranormal perjury,

this metaphysical merging

and blurring of the lines

is devoid of consent.

The void of contempt

which threatens to split

those sloppily-sewn stitches

switches lanes without a blinker,

hitches to the brains of critical thinkers

and rots them like a plague.

It doesn't return the shopping cart,

it profits from stolen and copied art.

It mows your lawn without asking

half-past 2:00 A.M.

It litters, kicks cute critters

and cuts roses at the stem

just so those who've stopped to smell

are deprived of the scent of them.

A functional dismemberment of society

is underway by day and night,

a forced sobriety

from the soaring highs of kindness,

community, and doing what's right.

This fight will be fought to the last

once the dice are carelessly cast,

so in your choice, I bid you, delay.

The only way to win

is not in battle, but in walking away.