The Beauty Of Strange Lives

Strange passions, emotions,

Felt through unfeeling eyes,

A vision in dereliction, devastation;

A panorama of virtue and vice.

In the throes of catastrophe shines,

The beauty of strange lives.

Blood and tears, grasping at straws,

Bullets, dynamites, the fireworks;

Fire-forged friends, cheap drinks, a broken cross–

Blazing trails in their wake leave the Young Turks.

Of darkest nights are born the brightest stars,

Famines birth messiahs; heroes, wars.

Strange lives in strange lands,

Live to die, and in death, reverberate–

In the neon lights of foreign screens

Images excite, enhance, desecrate.

The world watches, and cries, and contemplates,

As blood mixes with stale water,

And the headlines scream: violence escalates.

The beauty of strange lives,

That in burning, do not singe;

But warm at a distance, strange resistance,

To foreign aid, condescension, advice.

Statues and memorials raised, commemorate,

Strange names that, in passing, thrive.