The Economics of Spring by Debra Webb Roberts

There is no Arab Spring,
but only the slow demise,
the sad, eternal holocaust
for power and land and oil – djr 11052012 

Silent are the footfalls in the dust
Dreams blown up as powder ‘neath their feet
Absent are the bouyant steps of spring-ing trust
Heavy are the mourning wearing black and borne with grief

No green limbs of canopy to shield The Dream
No vibrant, lilting lift rustling the verdant overhead
Instead a blackened earth lay wide, the gaping wound
bleeds dread, engulfs the grays of wooden borne on
sad and broken backs, deposit to the wicked rifts with ashen face
following the asking Why, in sackcloth draped and stained with tears
more common than the rains of spring

~ ~

Anoints itself with darkened oil, that villain horde
Kneels within confessionals soiled with stench of death
Contrition wears a flimsy veil, penance paid in desert’s wail of smitten
Indulgences are purchased by the conflagrating rich
Deals made with the devil line the streets with blood and putrifaction

For in this world obsessed with flowing crude and black
There is no time, no place for turning back the tide of ills
Means to bitter ends stand guardian at the gates
Blockading sense, compassion maimed, defend their greed
Tattered are the fallen flags, the vestiges of war in flesh
Ripped, the rags of personage, and so it is we reap
the tears of crocodiles with teeth, though truly unrepentant

~~

Eden raped, in shambles shamed,
The Garden rent, polluting flames
Sands of time e’er turning and adrift
Ripped the tides and tables turned
Life is spurned and spent as waters turning fetid

Communal and the pastoral shred for nothing gained
Incinerate humanity and dies for lack of thirst
The oil flows, still drips in scorched
The whole earth dark and stained with blood

~~

We found no band of brothers there
Marauding sons of Esau sell
mothers for a loaf of bread
Betraying love of land and fathers dead
Sons of Balaam bargain with the brutes for gold
Wicked seeds will overrun the Rose of Sharon’s wilting heads
A stiff-necked empire crumbles underfoot in carrion fields

Where soldiers sought their fortunes made of ruin
Toss their lamed and impotent onto pyres of funerals
Rip the innocent and babes from arms of mothers
Desecate the saintly tombs, pay homage to the gods of broken

~~

Faith is but a mask from which they hide behind
For centuries of stony hearts filled with greed are blind
Where Tribal lights the fuse, ignites the ruse for plunder
and powers of the moment turn the living into graves

They build foundations cut in sand, new constructs, new collapse
Mirror the jaded images lacking nothing of the Old
and mimick at the slightest hint and shade of contrast
and formed with cold indifference to the price they pay for war

Mindless beasts, these men, who band themselves by rules,
twisted up in doctrine’s spin, convenient set of tools
They strain at gnats and swallow camels choking on The Deal,
tethered to the annals of the generations’ wars
when Faith is faked for propagandized fools and scarred
and Jacob’s sons still wander in the desert

~~

We gifted them with weapons formed of choice and pity
We pledged allegiance to the blood of nations laid to waste
Protected dragons raining fire on their cities
Convenience snuffs the light of truth, exploding in our face

Guilt runs black-gold rivers dripping from an evil brood
and buries in the sands of hate the flags forever waved for tight
lipped men with iron fists

We kissed the palms of kings to squeeze the life from land and friend
Unfathomable their depths of greed for power’s unseen ends
Unquenchable the fires burn and strafe the scorching sands

And promises for futures blown in arsenals of angry words
Fanatics chanting vows to death more pure to them than seeking peace

We raised them up and built their dreams
where time ticks off in shifting sands
and coffins are the price of drums
and barrels are the tickets stamped

We wipe our hands on crimson cloth for gold and silver

(c) Debra Roberts 11052012