Vainglory Poem by Boban Ramesan

Vainglory

The most ancient of wars
was between the human clans
that would leave unhealed scars,
casting fearful darkness over the lands
from the smoky clouds of the souls
displaced from their earthly lives…
The endless wars, the death tolls
the visceral hatred and the war cries
are totally alien to the slain
No longer do they feel the pain
of the injured enduring the suffering
as they have ceased to be living,
The posthumous conferring of laurels
are mere objects like dead flower petals,
The epics speak of women ululating
over the bodies of the dead warriors
The bards from their tents would sing
emotional eulogies for the lost heroes,
The sculptors would spend sleepless nights
carving the statues, to be erected with rites
by the king as a befitting monument
covertly for his own aggrandisement!
Man belongs not to the earth, but to a territory
that's the essence of the human story
he who lays down his life for the land is brave
he would do everything that he could to save
the piece of land from invasion by others
thus paying obeisance to his forefathers …
The clash of the clans continues with ferocity
in a violent torpor, with no scope for sobriety;
The war hero becomes the stuff for the legend
of being undead, the valiant one's life doesn't end!
But he who has turned into a heap of dust
has no time for the cruel worldly jest
he only had the earth, there was no paradise
after death in the mirage of the skies …
The orchestrated vicious cycles of violence
through successive generations grow more intense
leaving no possibility for the light of peace
as the cold bodies decay under the wreaths …