The Laws Of War

Little grains floating on the night-river
Crouching in supplication and lust
Candles voicing a feeble protest
Fractals on a melting snowflake
Crystals of sugar in a child's mouth

Most noble, most foul
Visage of God and Satan
Lowest of the Low, Highest of the High
The drug peddler feeding his family
The broken clocks in a junkyard

The brute offering water to his enemy
The poet writing odes to a tyrant
The pain hiding behind violence
The cruelty behind affectation
The thorns on a rose stem

The godman quoting equations
The amulet on the wrist of a scientist
The hollow bullet of a cold soldier
The sharp needle of an aid worker
The ink of a martyred scholar
The scholars of bloodshed

Three hundred seasons dance
Awaiting a four line epitaph
At the drying of the pen
Every poem must finish.

Humans are walking contradictions, short-lived and yet so remarkable, capable of both the best and worst, a terrible beauty we're burdened with till the inevitable end. 

Written to "Coming Back To You" by Leonard Cohen.

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