The Death Machine
Don Hynes
The Death Machine
Conversation grows still approaching murder
the hesitant air full of unformed lightning.
All war is war upon the Earth
but the death machine continues
as if violence were selective.
In one room the children are bloodied
but we still eat, the TV blaring.
Walls shudder at night, ghosts
speaking in our dreams the truths
our daylight minds will not allow.
Those who awake are in horror
they shake the sleeping
crying out for what they’ve seen
but the unawakened do not stir.
Conversation turns sour;
the somnambulence undisturbed
begins to eat a portion of the day.
Soon there is less and less as death
conflates existence with living
and there will be no living in this house
until the doors are opened
and the murdered children speak.