Wise and Burn

It's a brush fire spreading, feeding as it moves.
It's a disappeared glacier, it's an airborne flu.
It's your disbelieving eyes locked in concrete miles.
It's your yawning conscious; it's a lawyer's smile.
It's an occupied country foaming at the mouth.
It's a smoking gun and a mushroom cloud.
It's a military mother with a boy in hell.
It's a flag draped casket and an oil well.
It's an Argentine school girl, gagged and bound.
It's a tortured camp, and it's a long way down.
It's the constant brace and shock of now.
It's the whole damn world turned inside out.
It’s a march to extinction, with your god in step.
It’s his name on your mouth; it’s his cross on your neck.
It’s a farm boy sprinting over desert dirt; he’s panting the “Our Father” in staccato spurts.
It’s his automatic rifle and it tells no lies, that there’s truth in your stomach there’s no alibi.
But the trouble lies on the other side, with an equal truth prepping for his holy night.
Since the crescent and the star born came the virgin sky, here’s the call of milk and honey from the afterlife.
As he eases to the checkpoint he is calm and sure, that collateral damage is the cost of war.
It’s another bag of bones for the gods to sort, just another bag of bones for the gods to sort.
There’s species disappearing, all the birds fly south in a January heat wave in a pulsing crowd.
It’s an African militia, kids with sub machines.
It’s a conflict diamond on your bride to be.
It’s the mission of ratability, you’ll get what’s yours until there’s nothing left over and you’ll get no more.
It’s not what we’re owed but it’s what we’ve earned and it’s closer than we realize and it’s time now to burn.
It’s time now to burn.