Distant Epitaphs

Distant epitaphs drain the world
Of color so vibrant
And leave dark craters
A constant drone of loss howls the words
And rains in torrents
Upon desperate masses
A frantic, captive throng -- prisoners
Of men and madness
Of hate and power
Gasps of snuffed-out light reverberate
Like some foul wind
That tears through nature

Resentful eyes will track the men who destroyed them
Accusations pierce the silence
The unheeded testimony of stolen voices
Betrayed in contempt to an unmarked grave

Distant epitaphs roar from where sanity fled
And horror gives chase
Snarling and ravenous creatures emerge from the dark
Nightmare monstrosities shamble forth
Decayed and servile to rancid ambition
Dredged from a past of primal virtues
Wherein nothing grows but
Dread machinations of violent compulsion
That stalk the virgin day and strangle dark crisp nights
In terrible campaigns

Resentful eyes will track the men who destroyed them
Accusations pierce the silence
The unheeded testimony of stolen voices
Betrayed in contempt to an unmarked grave

Fearsome echoes of death pang eternal
Conscript the world to war

The ever-constant pulse of degradation
The pounding drum of ceaseless confrontation
Awash in sorrow, we gaze from distant vistas
And thrash against the tearing claws of time

The helpless victims of an empire's failures
Chained to dark annals of a history that's already written
Unending screams, inhuman conditions
Forever to speak their deafening truth
Forever to sing their sorrowful dirge
Forever to command we cling to the future that they were all denied