Table Manners

~

occasionally you can taste it in the air

a distant unpleasant tang of smoke, metal 

dirt and flesh, a sure sign a war lies just

over the horizon,

were we to be honest life has been good 

for so long and it is easy to forget one’s 

table manners

now the peaceful hum of life

we have enjoyed has begun to growl, rumbling 

like a hungry complaining stomach demanding food,

few still alive remember the last feeding frenzy,

the violence to decide those that were to be fed 

and those left for dead, no doubt war will come

and with it a famine of tolerance,

an empty tomb of common sense

and the immoral debris of man’s polluted avarice

* 

© Graham R Sherwood 04/26