Tears in the Sand

Posted by Brad Osborne on June 23, 2022 · 20 Comments 

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There was a time not so long ago

When I was not the man you know

A very different version of me

That most will likely never see

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And in that there is a hopeful good

Karma unforgiven even if it could

A time of such moral insanity

Riddled with crimes against humanity

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Employed in a machine made to kill

Haunted by the memories still

The only excuse to make it just

It was either them or it was us

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But that is the great hypocrisy

Of the oft repeated fallacy

Their wrongs I would never know

Just evil because someone said so

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You can wrap it up in the flag

Or some patriotic hashtag

But just because you know the song

Doesn’t mean you must sing along

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Each action taken by choice

Pretending I had no other voice

I did what was ordered of me

Now chained to gifted misery

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A loved brother and son to family

And all those things he maybe

But gladly would I take his life

My contribution to continued strife

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If amidst the dry and sandy sea

They could sit right across from me

Would we still kill one another

Or would we have seen a brother

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I’d like to think as individuals

We would have set some new rules

A new course could then be found

Finding human common ground

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Yet no matter how we wish it true

This flaw in man resists subdue

A hatred fanned so steadily

By men who take lives so readily

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Around the world we would roam

Told we were protecting our home

But in this barren stretch of sand

It is they who fight for homeland

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If the fight beset our own shore

Deadly evil knocking on our door

Maybe I would better understand

All those tears shed in the sand

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Filed under Poetry · Tagged with brotherhood, conflict, desert, finding peace, human nature, humanity, mankind, poem, Poetry, sand, strict form poetry, strife, tears, unity, war