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Elegy -- Machine Head

Guest poem sent in by "Toby Gray"
(Poem #1804) Elegy
 Elegies are to be sung
 Winds of Armageddon come
 Ignorance within your bliss
 Soon you will atone for this
 In your carcinogenic haze
 Baneful of a newer age
 Flowers of a different scent
 Poisons of the earths lament

 A requiem
 Earth belong not to you
 Belong all we to her

 Take another deeper breath
 Inhale invisible death
 Pollution fills the land and sky
 Forever you justify
 Take a deeper look and see
 Nothing's left to future seeds
 Icicles melt in the blood
 Ashes where there once was wood

 A requiem
 Earth belong not to you
 Belong all we to her

 Pain of life has pulled you under
 Left you there to bleed and wonder
 Open heart is torn asunder
 Wrong the wrongs that you've been suffered
 "Kill" we scream in roaring thunder
 Destroy all, leave all things plundered

 Acid rain cries her pain
 Full bloom, a world gone insane
 Her anger the flower
 Plays God with all of our lives

 A requiem
 Earth belong not to you
 Belong all we to her
-- Machine Head
    (from the album Through the Ashes of Empires)

This is my favourite poem (well, song lyrics actually). It may not be a
masterpiece of pattern and structure, but sometimes simplicity has a power
all its own (although it's obviously better with the music to back it up).
The line "Ashes where there once was wood" never fails to move me with a
combination of anger and sadness, but the main reason I like it so much is
"Earth belong not to you, belong all we to her". I'm eternally amazed by how
many people find this simple concept so difficult to grasp.

Toby

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