Monument to Peace
Now that peace is at
hand
They have commissioned
monuments
to the New Future.
We are all
encouraged
to forget the past
because we have so much
to look forward
to.
Move ahead or stay behind
Stay behind and learn to die.
It will
kill you, living in
the past
and all the dreams the
future was
supposed to be.
I have too many ghosts in
my head
angry at me for
their
creation.
I don't know what to tell them--
the story has been
changed,
the ending rewritten
At any rate it's not
what I have
been
telling them all these
years
and they are
somewhat upset with
me.
"This?
This is your glorious dream?
This is why you
sat
outside my back
door, and waited for
me to burst out, running
from
the gunman at the
front
This is why you leaped into
view at the last
second
and pulled the trigger?
This
is why you stood over me
and
shot me in the head
to stop my pleading eyes
and shot me again to
be
sure I was dead?
For this?
You know, you almost had
me
believing my murder
was worth it.
Almost."
What do I
say?
My credibility is shot to hell
in more ways than one--
they don't
listen to me anymore,
all these angry ghosts
of troubles past
But
they never did anyway...
They never thought they had
to die to begin
with.
Not at my hand, not
for any glorious cause....
They have
commissioned a
monument to peace
to the New Shared Future--
Build
it not of marble but
of bone
Colour it not with
tins of paint but in
the red
of blood-- let it run at the
base and seep into
the
ground
Ah yes, but we must not live in the
past-- it is the past
they
say that kills us
Yes, it is the past that kills us
We
have so much to look forward to
a chorus of
ghosts.