ONCE WAS ME

Venom dripping from children

Who claim to be men

They speak with big words

And speak them louder than...

Thinking insistence

Is a prophet

And demanding

Is the way

But regardless of their torture

They cannot keep -

What they can take

So they scrawl arrogance

And trifle in lies

Speak as if they're God

Keep women up all night

Megalomaniacal cowards

Think they know the way to go

But they speak like gaping fish

Blind to hook, or roe

They lay barren, full of self

Spurting out with flesh and ego

They think to change the course like dikes

But know not the way the stream flows

So they prop up on the shoulders

Of the ones that they put down

Spreading secret wars and pestilence

Like a blackened circus clown

But their words have no volition

None observe there darkened deeds

'Cept for their foremost victim

The one they claim to "need"

I have seen it - I have been there

In a war I didn't know

Bombs exploding all around me

Yet knew nothing of my foe

Blinded while he plotted

Plodding right along my side

Slowly losing secret wars

That the coward tried to hide

Yet that experience informed me

Found my warrior within

Found the eyes to see the secret bombs

Of the coward and his kin

And as the next approaches

Hear the gnashing of his teeth

Feel him posturing and flexing

Though he's nowhere to be seen

He runs around in dark corners

Like the roach or rat he sneaks

Cannot come into the light

Lest all the rest should see

So I will drive him out

Make him come and show himself

For the damsel in distress

Has duress for nothing else

Simple act of mad coercion

As he smites her every dream

But I fear no retribution

For the victim once was me