Peter Preston

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...And, It Was Beautiful

...and so it ended,
the guns laid quiet,
and through the rain
shot only the howls
and the silence stood still,
amidst the swollen rubble
they surveyed their work,
and it was beautiful.

Who could not love,
pools of blood? Death
and water, carried
along to the gutter.
And all the roofs, gone.

And the dead lay still,
the children not playing
but rotting—their eyes
but marbles against skin,
and that same skin receding
into the skull, their mouths
full of water and empty of words.

...and so it was, the rain
pattered out the fire; the guns
and washed the dead, and
dressed the stones with damp.
The blood never stopped writhing.
...and, it was beautiful.

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