For my brother-in-love, Ben J.

A nice commenter noticed that I had no poetry on this Life – Times – Rhymes blog. So here is a rhyme I wrote for my brother-in-love Ben J. The poem is inspired by one of his songs.

By Blood 

The lovers and the fighters

the singers and the mute

the old and young and in between

grandiose, mediocre, or minute…

 

However you divide it

the world is really one.

Its men, its boys, its dogs,

to dust they all become.

 

I’d love to sit upon the hillside,

share a cigarette,

smile at the high tide,

let go of our regret.

 

I wish the wars were seasons

falling into disrepair,

never to have harmed us,

their shrapnel only air.

 

But the war that each man wages,

is a war he must win within.

Man’s red heart beats in cages

the enemy placed him in.

 

We entered into this prison

with a simple force called Will.

The will is all that we have left

it is the pride of it that kills.

 

The Choice is not with governments

parental states or potentates.

It did not come from cultural heritage

or an ethno-centric-race debate.

 

It came with all, in all, throughout

from somewhere so deep

geneticists cannot get it out.

 

Humanity thinks that natural laws

will obliterate its cause and clause,

evolve to higher spiritualistic states,

so far above these base debates

of religions and theology…

 

The lovers and the fighters

the singers and the mute

the old and young and in between

grandiose, mediocre, or minute…

 

However you divide it

the world is really won,

with three nails some wood,

thorns and Blood.