Entertain Us. Poem by Ripper Jones

Yelps of animals in agony like seals at feeding time
Screams of gladiators like the worst horror film
Blood and gore, red as a sickly rose
Entertain us, for we are the mob
Entertainment is the circus
The roar of the crowd
Uncivilised - ignorant - Blood-thirsty
Noise - Pain - Dying
Kill - Kill - Kill
Death - Death - Death
The song of death reaches Saturn's ears
Pluto's here today so watch your step

If this was entertainment,
What was life like outside?
War of all against all and everything else
Cheap life - nasty - brutal and short.
How could these people with the same brain
And the same mind as ourselves
Watch torture - rape and killing.
What was tenderness and/or kindness to them?
A thumbs down from the emperor meant another death - One more universe shattered
Why didn't they build an amphitheatre
On or about the silver mines,
So ghouls could watch the miners
Slow, tortuous life
They could have marvelled as
The under - world slaves
Were slowly bent and crippled
They could have savoured all the whippings
People were owned - they were property -
Worked to premature death
They found themselves in Hell-on-Earth

Was this the glory of Rome?
Beyond the parades - was this it?
Was this life?

Feel the agony, feel the pain
You won't come back again.
But you're here, and your soul,
Bears the mark of Cain.

Blood and death, an unearthly pell
Unleash the gods of Satan's Hell.
Screams of delight as gladiators proud
Are robbed of life by a three pronged sword.
A noisy cacophony, baying for blood
That special stock that special bud
Flowers not but dies soon after
The seeds of life and then here-after.