Sacrificial Poet
He approached the microphone,
Steady as he tried to leap to his feet
But he was held down by cinderblocks
His mind represented a glass half empty,
As his conscience crept behind his shadow
Millions turned a blind eye to a tortured soul
His spirit drained from waves of a plague he created
Like a dilapidated building,
In it contained the last scripture of a misbegotten nation,
Gradually Mephistopheles spoke,
Extracting the man’s larynx and crystallizing it into ash,
As his body knelt at the alter
A slain soldier killed from too many pieces of shrapnel
Embedded in thinning heartstrings
That never knew how to love
For time became his crutch, his back bent backwards
As inertia imploded his falling atoms
And comets lost their reasoning for hurtling
toward final Armageddon
Horns stopped playing
Drums ceased their medley of melody
The room fell silent