'Til it Won't Rise Again

 I noticed them on the April shore

thinking they were done for

but like wine in old bottles

they persevered, preserved:

salvages for the savages, 

and I should have had an axe,

or a torch, something with which to burn

(but O! how would they ever learn?)

Have I seen these trenches, dear?

The outlines reckon, I fear,

with the foundation of an evil place

and could I pour cement on it,

and make a slab where no bunker would 

exist for them, no rathole, no place

to raise this up again--I would.

Do I know these cornerstones?

Yes, though they were tossed away like bones.

Now rolled back, rolled here, rolled there.

Building a wall, a tower, a church--

I know the names of such places, and the 

way of the work and they should be broken.

Broken. Powdered. And the dust

should white out every 

lie of their making. 

And I will make ink of ashes and tears,

I will make ink of ashes and blood,

I will write for them:

You have tried since the flood

and every time your tongue confounded,

every time your walls did fall,

every time you trampled the young grapes,

every time you burned our harvests,

every time you poisoned our water,

every time you stole our youth,

every happy home you broke with poverty,

every bird you made fall from the sky--

these are the new stones 

that will hold down the slinking Beast,

the Leviathan city you hope to build,

I will heap them up,

I will heap them up,

until your champion bloodred curse will lie

until it won't rise again.