content warning: violence, war

Though you’ve watched the earth bleached more
Into a ghost town with each machine round
You won’t yet forget, no vacant palette
Wall-fly, eckleburg’s eye
Ally and alumni
You remember what they repress
Not tabula rasa, they won’t make you acquiesce
To their parrot press,
Not another blank mind
To be stamped carbon blind

Not tabula rasa, you witness
New age conquistadors and their clandestine armada
As the colonial ink, that lemon juice trick appears
Through claw marks on Kashmir,
Many swim through channels
Of gaping goldfish panels,
Clamped onto the fishing hook schtick
Of red faced politrix

Not tabula rasa, you’re the dragon of Gaza
When towers collapse, when rockets reign
Showering down shadows, terror as their terrain
You rise in dust clouds, rinsing dull air dry
As a thousand throats burst forth a blistering cry
You’re the breath within them, setting the sky ablaze
Evaporating the murky media haze
Never the coward’s punch, you’re the pacifist’s roar
Never tabula rasa,
You’re the closed fist that lifts
Against war.