What madness stirs, O sons of men,
Who build the pyre, then burn again?
What ancient ghosts must rise and wail
Before the living lift the veil?
You chant of peace, then fund the flame—
Then call the ash by honor’s name.
You march for God, for Flag, for Law,
But kiss the boots of Cain in awe.
What creed compels this bloody rite,
This wedding feast of dark and light?
You crown your kings with children’s bones
And pave your streets with shattered thrones.
The generals dine. The young men die.
The mothers wail. The prophets lie.
And poets, tired of keeping score,
Now scribble silence, nothing more.
For what has Rome to say to this—
But bitter wine and Judas kiss?
Her laurels rot. Her steel grows thin.
Yet still you sow what cannot win.
Each war is sold with sacred breath—
And bought with youth and sealed by death.
Each peace, a pause, not long, not wide—
A breath between the turning tide.
The tyrants speak of “Greater Ends”—
And call the graves they dig “amends.”
The banker grins. The priest absolves.
The wheel turns on. The lie evolves.
O children of Prometheus’ line,
You knew the fire—yet made it mine.
You knew the cost—and paid it still,
And called it faith, you called it will.
Epitaph of Empire
Here lies the breed that praised the blade,
Then wept beneath the wars they made.
They knew, and knowing, fed the flame.
They died for gods they could not name.
Would Lucan weep? Or merely write—
Another canto for the night.
Another book of ash and bone
To mark a world that should have known.
