The Moth and the Candle

Wading through a sea of blood, I stop to look back

At those who float behind me, who have turned this sea black

They cover the surface for as far as the eye can see

They bob in slow motions and touch and terrify me.

Who were they, these victims of circumstance?

Who were killed without a thought, or a second glance

No one cares or no one knows, so I cry my heart out

For these now forgotten dead who have lost this last bout

In a fight they couldn’t win and didn’t in the end

So they lie in their thousands, of this I can contend

Soft voices whisper slowly in a thousand separate tongues

Speaking of the horrors and their deaths by stuttering guns

No moral laws were quoted in the performance of this slaughter

Few men or women spared nor even their sons or daughters

All done to enrich again those of gold and brocade

Satisfying the blood thirst of the gentleman capitalist brigade

And when the massacres are all done and the tales are all told

When the memories fade cruelly and the survivors all grow old

We can walk together, you and I, through these paths of dread

To breathe life once more and remember those who are dead