The Barbarians are here

The Barbarians Have Been Called
They come wearing many flags,
many scriptures,
many uniforms,
many languages—
yet always carrying
the same mission to dominate, to wage battles, torpedo and plunder the people.
They raid the homes of immigrants
before dawn.
Settlers drive families
from ancient hills and call possession
their God’s promise.
They proclaim themselves
freedom fighters,
holy warriors,
liberators,
while innocent women and children are excluded from the tunnels, where only the warriors are protected. The women and children are ravaged by their brutality.
Leaving only the grammar of grief.
These barbarian patriarchal leaders and their sycophantic politicians, preachers, and billionaires are raping, killing, or veiling women and girls—it is a learned hatred of “the other.”

The Barbarians march beneath medals,
maps, and empire,
And compete by sending the young
to die for their very old ambitions.
They praise hardness,
muscle,
obedience,
And mistaken cruelty
for strength.
Every age invents
its own barbarians.
Every age finds leaders paid by the billionaires
willing to summon them.
And always,
it is the innocent
who pay the price:
the child beneath rubble,
the mother searching names,
the old man carrying
the dead.
God—
if there are angels
still walking this earth,
we need them now.
Stand between
the hand and the weapon,
the order and the bullet,
the hatred
and the human heart.
Teach us,
before another generation is buried,
that no victory
built upon innocent lives
has ever been a victory at all.