War In Retrospect Poem by Daniel Y.

Line up to die, said a sign with a smile.
The cheery music kept an upbeat march.
Buildings were filled and cut from the ground,
in unison, cities were flattened and burned.

Blackbirds circle above the kill.
Shards of white porcelain strewn under helmets.
Merely metal bowls of meat left for stray dogs to eat.
Dislodged smiles with loose jawed grins.
The cookie cutter graves set in a grid.
Were they marching, all in a row?
Lillies of the field, mowed in their prime?
The red rain stained the earth, and mixed, makes muddy drudgery.
This chocolate soup of brains and bowels.
Rats and flies feast on human efforts.
Hands scattered about the barren fields,
maybe hidden by tall grass.
Ancient mines beneath occasionally slay the curious child.

A wall which reaches the stratosphere to keep both out and in, and in their places.
Here where the two things meet. The guards watch and never sleep.
Lines of people go this way and that.
Endless walking
on shoeless feet.
No one, nowhere, expects a burial.
Line up to die said a sign with a smile.

The mushroom rises to the sun.
Shadows are burnt into the street.
The fluttering ashes drift to a pause.
The occasional corpse intact, becomes a valuable souvenir.

A thousand flags of warring clans,
this is the natural state.

Far beneath the porcelain facade are deep scars.