Your Johnny of 1917
By Peter Scott
Nailed to the cause
I am strung amongst the crowds
Loftily above
Where none may touch
People hurl eggs
Cracking, drooling from my clothes
Moving along
The procession stays fast
Carrying the cross from street
To street
I watch with nonchalance
!They mean nothing to me
Still the flag is swarmed
I on its shoulders
Additional mass gathers
Catapulting rocks to torment me
I ignore
Deflected they go and shower
Breathing outrage and contempt
Something I know little of
As the parade files onward
Arms of love are arrested the right
To refuse the crowd
Which doesn't cause anger it
Merely makes me forlorn
Nailed to a sign of regression
In a home you ought to trust
Displayed for the good folk
Who worry you are gifted
!Might you conceivably be
!What only they dream of?
The theory creates a swollen moment
To make a grand statement
Not accepted
Exponential claims are thrust in spite
Words said
Proceeded by a lashing
Of your stake
!Move now!
Sweat drips onto the
Newborn fire
Stoking a cheered reaction
Many find fault in
But dare not speak
Sleep comes
An instant before I wake
I recognize
The land coated in sweet
Candy covered starkness and black
Retained to the cross
My body still remains whole
Often I curse the fortune
!Curse the amber's dead glare
Pooling and collected
Internally driven
Inexperienced blood
Bursts
Across my heart
And through my palms
Marking where I was abused
Towering over worthless ashes
A slightly perverse color of red
The papers elaborated
On what survivors could not explain
Wrote fictitious commentary
Camouflaging their mental lapse
Interpreted many ways
Why hundreds died
Bloody
Gory deaths
At the hands of something else than believed
Later
All chaos cracked
Away from humanity's serene utopia
Millions perished then
My only original sin the
Nucleus of so many problems masqueraded
Origin set at one.
