Poem: Leader

 Leader

 

boys cheer

till their necks blush to the words

of a great white man

who burrows into the dark

to extract their reddest essence.

 

the cave that is the speech

of that bottomless mouth

plucks all those jugulars

to throb and swell

with hate ripe enough to reap

 

until

 

it is cast down

on the shame of mothers

when they mourn the loss

of a fly-speckled son

turned into another corpse of war.

 

a brag of fireworks like gunshots

accompanies the golden plane

of the great white man

as the wings drag the sunset along,

adding its fresh blood to the pile.

 

 

====================================

Inspired by the work of Denis Johnson