Savage Hate Poem by Elizabeth Padillo Olesen

It abducts the human heart
to the dungeon where
dragons stretch their tongues of fire
to kill and burn what others have built and owned.
It is the dungeon, where modern draculas live and hide
to modernize their weapons and
extract river pools of blood from the innocents.

It trains the human heart
to abort and reject love, and to taste
only the bitter herbs of hate and vengeance
And soak them in the screaming blood of the victims
inspired by the promise of the false paradise.

This savage hate, this savage hate of
violence and war, of terror and arrogance
to be the little gods bring us all down.

And yet the remaining goodness,
which cannot be destroyed
by the darkness in this dungeon
neither by the bitter herbs of poison
that kill more and more,
continues to dwell in the human heart
ever whispering
lamenting,
craving,
convincing
to enthrone the gospel of hope in our time.