On the cold streets of Iraq,

I get a shiver in the dark.

Sirens play overtime in the streets,

Around the park, and south of my position.

My sobbing laughter is eerie,

Echoing off shattered buildings

And carnage of the previous war.

Cruel pictures are drawn by

Hands holding weapons as

Joyful memories slither and disappear

Into the crevices, once containing

Voices speaking of a normal life.

The piles of bodies show the screaming

In death like figures of an age

Frozen in eternity without hope

For a future or a past. The Brown

Brick of the buildings fade to hopless

Red caked with congealed black blood.

The people here plead for a second

Chance among the promises and decay.

I enter the royal houses to sweep

The terrorists from the vicinity.

The marble floors return my footsteps

In the form of rubber hitting a hard surface.

I leave streaks from my issued

Black-soled-shoes.  I exit the rich

Houses for peeling walls that tell

The same story of glory. Beyond

Patches, dents, and marks

An ideology remains claiming

The youth of a third world country.

I avoid the jars of ashes that

Reek of gasoline and hope.

I have been told ultimately

Mice and men share the

Same fate in the end

As history older than man always

Collapses.