A Victim of Convenience

To sleep with the children, to war with the young
leave the martyrs to seek their reprieve
behind sublimation, their rights and their laws
to claim what is best is what already was
that a nobler life is one lost for a cause
in which only the living believe

To harbor, each ship and each lover, to bed
a safety of dock and of arms
and there we will hide ‘til the darkness has gone
‘til the unseen horizon spreads simpler dawn
‘cross the feather-soft lies we’ve long rested upon
as if virtue could keep us from harm

To worship, to worry: a world on its knees
awaiting its philistine fate
but fate is a feather awaiting a wind
a breath to inspire, a voice to ascend
not another messiah to bid us pretend
that it isn’t already too late