Hunger, Games, and the Blood of Children
This hunger hollows like a sounding drum
with empty bellies gathered on a train
not by starvation will we now succumb
applause resounds as each of us is slain.
Like mice, they bait the trap. We’re cut in half.
I perch above the carnage with the jays,
watch you circle, fire to your chaff,
unleash the swarm, the stings of your malaise.
Yet now I stand alone though we are two
as tiny murder rolls upon my tongue
a taste of night to sleep without rescue
a harmony now broken and unsung.
I’m numb to your acclaim and cruel disdain
Though we would shed the blood, you bear the stain.
This hunger hollows like a sounding drum
with empty bellies gathered on a train
not by starvation will we now succumb
applause resounds as each of us is slain.
Like mice, they bait the trap. We’re cut in half.
I perch above the carnage with the jays,
watch you circle, fire to your chaff,
unleash the swarm, the stings of your malaise.
Yet now I stand alone though we are two
as tiny murder rolls upon my tongue
a taste of night to sleep without rescue
a harmony now broken and unsung.
I’m numb to your acclaim and cruel disdain
Though we would shed the blood, you bear the stain.
The secret of poetry is cruelty.--Jon Anderson