“The road to hell is paved with good intentions” Saint Bernard

I walk through this land of dust and rocks

Where headless statues lay toppled

As the bloodthirsty mob with torches and pitchforks

Barrels toward Auschwitz and Dachau

Changing the future by rewriting the past

Replacing education with censorship

 

I climb to the mountaintop,

Survey the arid valley,

Dead, but for the rabid horde, foaming at the mouth,

We want what’s ours, they chant, send them back, they chant

Integration, globalism, populism, doesn’t work, they chant

Us vs them.  Only us.  No them, they chant

 

Should I join a side?

Cock my gun? Light my Molotov?

Ally with the tolerant left?

If you’re an ethnic minority, you can join us, no problem

Here’s your pile of bricks,

I hesitate.  They only want me because I’m one of them.

 

I venture down into the valley,

Digging to find water for my dry throat, burning eyes,

But all I find is salt,

As their chants fill my ears

White lives matter, white lives matter, white lives matter

Luring me closer with their siren’s cry

 

But I return to the canyon top

Past blackened trees and burned grass

Towards the fires blazing in the horizon

The screams of the damned

In eternal torment

Victims of their own corrupt ideologies

 

I stare down at the ravine,

As the two sides clash together

Charlottesville.  Brexit.  Election year.

Pillaging the last of the water from this cracked land,

leaving nothing for the innocent trying to survive

Does hell await us all?

 

*Author’s notes*

After a long wait, I have finally returned to my poetry collection based on famous quotations, see the others below:

1. Left Behind

2. Shattered

3. Crystal

4. Revival

5. Silence

6. Illusory

 

Thank you to my beta-readers Nic, Rachel and Jennifer.  This poem is very much inspired by Ozymandias.  It follows an unknown narrator as they traverse an apocalyptic wasteland ravaged by the political bipartisanship that is tearing our society apart right now.