dark side of empire - [poem] 2/4

uprising

sticks and spears against rifles
crushed bones crackling underfoot with every step
a quiet war at first
then your palace
your reichstag
my rebels burned it

dusty streets awash in blood and pain
mortars sailing into the houses of innocents
the naked children hiding in terror in the crushed rubble
choking on asbestos clouds
screaming for the long-dead people they thought
could always protect them
clawing in the dark
ripping their fingernails off to escape
the noise and death and pain

all of us dying in numbers
those numbers and the resolve my only hope
i killed your generals one by one
until you lost your taste for this fight
and retreated