Watchers At Midnight

On and off again during my life there has been the feeling that things are about to combust, fall apart, or all come crashing down. Humanity goes in circles, continually coming to this crossroad. As the reactionaries and bad faith actors march closer and closer to extremism we risk throwing our humanity away in favor of a loyalty to something else. And the next time it all goes to hell, there may be no going back, just mutually assured destruction.

Watchers At Midnight

The symbols of this army

Beacons on the streets

Cruelty up above us

Screaming back at me

Howling at the empty

Pantries bare as bone

Buildings swallowing me

Burning skin like tomes

Bury knowledge, pile people

Forsaken like the wind

These precursors are so perverse

But they never change a thing

The calling of the lonely

Days where we all once were kin

Pushed so far from compassion

It's easy to begin

Hollow like these veins

Vaults once pumped with blood

Trenches we've forgotten

Moments we have not fought

Time is always borrowed

The horizon starts to glow

The ticking of the Geiger

Matches midnight as it grows

Children who inherit

A quiet dying Earth

No melodies remain for listening

Not a note is left

Seeing lands weep red

Crimson flags and blackened boots

Fracturing, we hope that things

Will never bring them back

Lessons needed learning

But have we all forgot?

The cruelty and the hunger

Killing, hatred, rot

A hungry hell-mouth opening

Clouds like the face of death

And the fundamental failings

A people of empathy bereft

Carve another casket here

Another child lost

Brought to the brink of war once more

Internal but carrying an eternal cost

And so the memories they decay

And metal barrels rust

As the warning sirens blaring

But the meaning has been lost

Blotting out the future

Fading out into the night

For the enemy within us

Is always at the gates

Watching with a hunger

Settling on a comfortable hate

Stage is set and curtain call

To come to terms with fate

Torches have been lifted

Traditions instead of bread

Deception in place of progress

They want the others dead

In mania you lick your lips

Sign your consent on the line

Resign yourself, now traitorous

No turning back in time

Marking this blast radius

A crater you may call your home

Watch them through your pearls clutched

Leaving your humanity in dust

The shadow of this nameless fear

To call ones different your family

A strength turned altogether false

To build up a false reality

Strings instead of trumpets sounding

How deep the madness lies

Keep repetition profitable

And whistle while you disguise

We must make victory impossible

Must keep your Valkyries silent

With the threat of midnight falling

Fascism is never rising

(Art is AI Generated using Wombo Dream App)