Why should it all fall,

or the embers fly?

Are we justified at all,

or sentenced to die?

 

Fire at a distance

And these lives so run

Whose daily business

Was to have souls undone!

 

Towers of opulent, deathly stone

Grazed from backs of labor’s knives

Dress the black hearts of human tones

That yell, still louder, at those who strive!

 

Who are we, to dress so well,

When all within, rotten, wills not to see

But a speck of human love, here in hell,

Where otherwise hearts would flutter free?

 

Diamonds in blood, and cannons remote

Destroy far lives, while our parties roar

Red turns the pile, where commonly wrote

Civilian tears, while we gained the more!

 

Nay, tell me not, of any deserved

Safety for us who, pestilent, kill

All things of dear value, mystically served

Whether Nature, or each other, for a mere, raging thrill!

 

Shallow the eyes, and gossip, the tongues

Tearing and ripping every face divine,

Of man, so crafted, as for his best hung

A tapestry, high, in a guillotine rhyme!

 

But somber, be not!

This fire won’t burn!

Only shall clear

All that has its turn:

 

To suffer what once, it gave to others

And wither in space, now cold and better

Than any such state it ever so mothered

Like Satan’s child, loosed of a fetter!

 

Stand near me, and smell the Song

As Smoke grows thick, and pillars crash

Now the time’s up for this scamming, long,

sickly excuse for civilized trash!

 

Rise though it will, and cover still more!

Nonetheless sing these fiery Sprites,

Who see our love, where four eyes soar

Deep in each other, before such lights:

 

sparkle in you, and tender, touch me

as beloved, we go, and head for the Tree

It’s your sweet charm, and my will free

to render these Notes, so that we will be:

 

Together at last, in dreadful scare

But weep, my love, not,

For tomorrow we rise

 

From ashes, to new

Birds of a feather

 

Shouldn’t we, 

before this,

 

Have flocked together?

 

_________________

 

R.V. Smith: “The Fire”, 08-13-25

 

© 2025 by Ryan Vincent Smith