Oh! What we do to our children

Oh! What we do to our children
afore the sun has kissed
their skin of infinite shore,
we riddle them in serpent’s tongues
that rattle and hiss.
We maul open the bright indigo vein
that streams angels and swans
just so we can push needles
immersed in glorious greed
debauching the wild fruit of innocence
with the pestilence of our own abandoned dreams.

Come and see what we do to our children
our tomorrow, our future suns and moons
walk with a silver inertia, raucous and long.

A fist of repeating metal
feeds unoffending mouths
that gape with splendid eagerness
as such are the mouths of children.
They devour love, need the love that never
hunts tears and anguish, bones and blood,
enough blood to bleed for a starving war
into a singular warm pool, until the stars become sick
and pack their dazzle away.

Open yesterday’s wet wounds
with today’s fresh whip
listen to them all
children
howling parallel deaths into forlorn walls.

Yes, come and see what we do to our children!
Here in the world that beats so surely in God’s breast,
with lofty psalms of virtue
played by an absent ghost
on a silent accordion.

Oh! What have we done to our children
Cutting out all that is heaven-grown;
We ruined so perfectly
our only miracle
our last great majesty.