If It Has Taken Years To Inflict 'This' Poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar

If it has taken years to inflict,
The awareness of fear and conflict.
It is going to take a complete letting go,
Of all those 'stable' things we've come to know...
As unshakable standards,
Demanded by those who command.
With full acknowledgement,
Of an invested ignorance...
That has not returned a dividend since,
Implemented.

However,
There has been a decadent waste worshipped.
By a taste uninhibited by displays of disrespect.
As grown to be expected as accepted.
And...
IF it has taken years to inflict 'this' awareness,
Of fear and conflict.
It is going to take a complete letting go,
Of all those 'stable' things we've come to know...
As unshakable standards,
Demanded by those who command.

Since nothing as it was or had been then...
Is recognizable enough to bluff over boundaries.
Or to fight for the occupation of turf!
To realize after many lives die...
Gone is the vanity and the struggle over worth.