Socialist Sonnet No. 135

14^th February, 2024

 

This day past gangsters gunned down their rivals,

Aiming to further their enterprises,

Protecting the profit that arises,

Quite careless of who their ambition kills.

Almost a century on and it is still

The way rival gangs contend for power,

Only now they’re not mobsters, but dour

Faced leaders, claiming it’s their national will

Excusing the vile slaughter that ensues,

Relentless carnage, merciless campaigns,

With no refuge wherever terror reigns;

Deaths of innocents all over the news.

Amidst ruins and rubble children play,

A grim new meaning for this Ash Wednesday.

 

D. A.