Stitched with Platinum Hearts

By Shreyas Sundara Raman

Piercing explosions spew from jagged artillery shells,

That mow down twiggen soldiers, sent en route to the knell,

The aftershocks ripple through generations to outlast,

prisoners shackled to sights and souls from the past.

The tender ripe flesh stitched with platinum hearts,

an estranged soul deranged to rip another brother apart.

These mechatronic machines inured by bureaucratic jurisdiction,

dying beside strangers forging fragile compassion.

A loss is a loss, ten thousand pawns are lost — crimson web woven with pain,

Millions are decimated, cosmocracy not relegated, brave shadows buried in vain

These vengeful feuds among bloodlines plough our exhausted ancient Earth,

as her children’s fleeting ashes pile and smother her fiery hearth.

They carve her skin to imagined borders, fervently uncompromising,

exalting selfish power, grain and drink, unbridled weapons and fighting.

Or the genocide of expression, unfaithful to tenants of religion,

once our preach of ethics and virtue, now the hymn of annihilation.

The wealthy blessed with ignorant ‘justice’, blind to degradation,

terrified to diverge an archaic past — incapable of seeking placation.

That leaves us bound to primal greed in growth via destruction,

rather imposing our laws and burning foes, than uniting towards creation.

By Shreyas Sundara Raman