(Illustration by Public Square Amplified team)

Dancing to death

With ricocheting rockets on the rise.

And heaping helpings of hissing

Hot hints of horror.

Downstream are Dollops of debris atop decaying dead

With a scent of savagery soot

And a fume of fermented. fiery. flesh.

Seeing smoke afar

And simultaneously...

the sight of a slithering snake

 settling on the side of a sunken silhouette.

Of a masked man.

who managed to make it more minutes beyond the mark of madness. 

Then found himself  mashed in the middle of this makeshift massacre.

He passed. 

But not before more atrocities amassed 

across an abyss of ash

And add

To that- a tortuous task.

Sifting through soil

Sadly 

In search for shells of stained sickly souls

Hush!

While we hope to hear a heart's hum

Or a mouth's mumble

Not a growl

Nor a grumble

Not a gasp

But we got a grenade!

And a meticulously misused missile

Oh my!

They leveled the local liveliness 

Lethally

They Victimized the villagers

Pillaged the parishioners 

Killed the kids. Snuffed out the soldiers.

And wiped out witnesses 

Battling brothers 

Bickering brutes

Ishmael. Issac.

With their last breath.

Danced

To their deaths.