Have you mastered the art of war?
You, artist of destruction,
poet of pain and devastation,

do you see these bodies
pierced by our technological evolution?
Skin polluted by metal
stretched, torn, and eviscerated.

Mass graves of stillness;

Parents who hope this
is just some nightmare.
Life relegated to rigormortis.
Bone thin, friendly corpses
that touch such fierce coldness.
Photos that beg in black and white
for the shutters to stop.
Instead, we shudder and start
to forget all those body parts.

No ticking clock, just silent hearts;

While you acquiesce
I sit in shadowy corners and obsess
over our well-equipped darkness
as each victim becomes a painting.

Some splatter art spreading
all the shades of red
that they know,
while others are punctured pointillism.

But each body was once someone.
Now they become a hollow chamber
in a soldier’s gun
as a wounded warrior scratches another notch
in their already razor scarred
memory.