Garden Of The Dead

Garden Of The Dead
© Surazeus
2023 10 18

In weird Garden of Eden of my heart 
where holy bush of faceless god still burns 
I lay broken bodies of murdered dead 
in line with flowers blooming from their eyes 
so I can recite their most secret names 
in prayer so Blue Sky will remember them. 

Innocent men, women, and children killed 
in nationalist holy wars around our globe 
lie side by side in Garden of the Dead, 
therefore my whole heart aches with equal grief 
for loss of every individual soul 
from every nation populating Earth. 

I mourn for both Jew and Palestinian, 
mourn for both American and Vietnamese, 
mourn for both Russian and Ukrainian, 
mourn for both Korean and Japanese, 
mourn for both Iraqi and Iranian, 
for all humans are precious in my sight. 

The afterlife is the cruelest lie 
priests preach to people who long to believe 
that people they love who are killed in war 
ascend on angel wings to live in Heaven 
where they meet again in garden of fruit, 
but we vanish in soul-less wind of time. 

I want each person born from seed of hope 
to savor fullness of this too-brief life, 
joyful play of childhood in sunlit woods, 
romantic trysts in picnics by the lake, 
creative work that improves civic rites, 
raising children to live after we die. 

Each person killed by terrorists or soldiers 
in bitter conflicts between nation-states 
deserves to live in garden of our world, 
but people fight over the Tree of Life 
instead of sharing fruit to grow more trees 
till blood of the dead nourishes their roots. 

When I eat fruit the Serpent offers me 
I taste sweet souls of the dead killed in wars 
so I gain knowledge of the bitter truth 
that humans form gangs to kill other humans 
till Tellurian Empire assimilates all 
in new world order of one global truth. 

I stand with people trying to live their lives 
against both terrorists and soldiers with guns 
who kill them in war to control the world, 
for I would every human thrive in peace, 
sharing stories of love at global feast 
as we build Garden of Eden on Earth.