And how many times did Rome burn Carthage, how much ash in the air?

And how many times did it salt the crop fields, soiled red of citizen blood?

And how many times did it crumble the stone walls and civic structures?

And how many times did it reflesh legion march and exhaust manpower?

And how many times did it rebuild its navies to sail them to sinking storm?

But only once did Carthage invade - to still loose the war.

How many from today's wars lay soil rotting, a half to full million or more?

And beyond the dead zones of friction, how many places offshoot to war?

And how many economies collapsing to uphold these arrogant swords?

How much we value land and its resources, entitled by dominion minds,

But how little the millions of people that die for those deposits of wealth,

So heads of state can claim fabled purity of their ever-extending empires.

But has it been worthwhile to take hold this land, to cede to no demand,

To fill the brim of the greedy arms dealers spreading blood upon the soil,

And the mineral-minded corporations looking to rip at the environments,

Or whims of greedy rich men sitting on thrones expecting a world to own?

Who can claim morality now?

What place is an ethical way?

I see no leaders or nations that can don those glistening shrouds,

No voices that can speak without spitting blood upon my cheek,

Serial murdering states, wars on all fronts, and poverty at home.

Endless investment in death’s needy march,

But so little preparation for the dark future,

Of cities swirling in blowing winds collapse,

Of rising seas that swallow nations whole,

Of crop failures and ecological shutdown,

And extreme heat burning land and lung.

Armies, armies everywhere for insecure men warring from thrones,

Eating the young as feast, the monarchs of meat grinder factories,

Idolizing their golden images in our temples of humble democracy,

And ruining a world to allow greed rampage speed to apocalypse.