Counting Skeletons Maze Masterpiece War Poem by Terence George Craddock (Spectral Images and Images Of Light)

counting skeletons
broken dreams
upon destruction rocks

lost dead souls
who died in revolutions wars
lost grand causes

festering generations
decline in dissent protests battles
paid for in blood baths

wasted lives
rotten corpses
dead heroes

scared or reluctant sacrifice souls
afraid to offend authorities rogue countries
play non-confrontational activities

I according to teenage character summaries
lack appeasement walk boldly where angels
fear to tread without orders unpredictable steps

nothing now apparently surprises
(communist/overt) dictatorships
initially often deceive their citizens

more honest sincere dictators
in home grown brutality policies
plan comparisons tests futures

dictator futures
are mind battles wells
blood bath souls...

Egyptian futures
are mind battles
wells blood cast souls

human rights
watch some watchers
pray pain tears

who naive ever believes
has ever believed histories
are progressive certainties

history time progresses
regions conflict civilizations
rise mold peak enslave falls

Pablo Picasso moments
painted Spanish Civil War screams
Guernica shows tragedies

war sown suffering festering war inflicts
upon drift swept caught conflict individuals
consumes pale innocent seed civilians

cubist monumental status
perpetual reminder tragedies
anti-war pigment symbols

black white intolerant party issues
suffering people animals landscapes
buildings wreckage violence chaos

stage left fractured wide-eyed bull stands
over a woman mother grieving pities
raw ruptured screams dead child in waste arms

events blasts centre stage frog marches
occupation horse falling in countless agonies
run through spear javelin bayonet thrusts

large gaping torn wounds realities cruelties
horse's sides life bleed potent swift years
devoured bull dictators devour ripe bellies

which human skull death brews demon changes
overlays the horse's body escape crushed kneels
gore fleet horse freedom underneath deceptions

bull's horns gore tossed rent sacrifices flesh forms blood rivers
break escape equestrian front facing legs sanctuary sought shelters
seeks knee blood ground knee in groin leg's knee wobble forms

skull caps counting coup taken head's nose concussion bleeds
horn appears within horse's breast to savage despair steal souls
bull's tail forms images flame worship incendiary burning bombs

smoke rising as window civilization view remembers brighter days
before jack boot shade gray surrounding killed impaled freedoms
under slain horse dead dismembered soldier rapid heat rot perfumes

his hand on a severed arm still grasps
a shattered sword decay flower grows
his hand his severed arm sword parts

what symbolism here crimson reads
written on leaf palms of dead soldiers
read open palm of our dead soldiers

what on open palm of dead soldier dark passion flowers?
is sacrifice a stigma a symbol of war martyrdom stupidities
derived stigmata paid Christ symbolizes humanities sins

stage repeated is written a cross centuries
centuries stigma youth symbol martyrdoms
derived not from stigmata Christ but wars

what light bulb blazes above dismembered corpses?
what evil eye shape Satan peeps over suffering horse's?
head what eureka moment invented bare bulb torturer's?

cell purpose so solitude removed from learned monks
cell which serves to silent vesper recite sacred palmists verses
symbolism relates to Spanish light bulb 'bombilla' makes

explodes allusions to bombs Nazi Guernica destruction effects
modern technologies promised blessings blast curse societies
not a single dropp of blood spoilt fails to cry out plaintive pains

living by swords strokes dying by degrees
in modern mega manic brutality policies
civilizations living slice sharing expansions


Copyright © Terence George Craddock