Thorns

THORNS

Always there have been
men in mail,
who swung God's sword,
crushed the Infidels,
sowed death,
fought holy wars,
with God
on one side,
then the other.

White silken banners
blazoned with bright red crosses,
centuries crusted upon centuries
with men on lonely battlements
talking to Jesus.

Jesus,
make it worthwhile,
sweet Lord.
My friends are all dead.
Their bodies are ripped apart
like slaughtered cattle.
They lie all about me.

Yes,
the enemy is godless
and the heathens are many,
and I know
that I have killed
for You,
and the blood under my fingernails
washes off;
but Lord,
my comrades have given up
life,
given up the seasons,
and the rustle of the breeze
in tall grass,
and the feel of the damp warm earth
after a rain,
and women giving birth,
to come
to your bosom.

I can no longer hear their voices.
They are now just
butchered meat,
and their corpses fester,
piled high as a sacrifice
to the cruel kings of this earth.

I can only hear
footsteps
out there in the ink,
in the void,
frightening me;
and on the brink of this gaping abyss
where is the faceof my God ?

Very soon,
I feel in my heart,
I, too
shall plunge into the scarlet waters
that lap at my feet,
and my doubts have not
ebbed.

For all the mothers of heathens
could not be whores,
and the enemy rallies
to a banner of his own,
and prays to You,
or his version of You,
and knows love
and lice and fear,
and his children
and his flower garden
wait for his return.
So,whose bullet
is more holy ?

Glenn Buttkus 1973