Tattered Mess

A pack of wild dogs,
Is running loose in our midst,
Raging through the streets and mall,
Tearing our hapless world limb from limb,
Devouring all that was good and pure,
Followed in their tracks by the grinning Jinn.

We need to be like Roma,
Those smiling survivors in their caravans,
Gypsy clans that constantly roam ahead,
Journeying fearless into arid untamed wilderness,
Searching for water and food and sustenance,
Traveling beyond the detritus,
 Civilized men conjuring wicked force upon them.
Gypsies, staying a day ahead,
A league or two in front of the hungry prowling tiger,
Gypsy clans, out foxing those legions and armies that hunt them,
All those mercenary units paid in blood and gold to capture them,
Like they were  nothing but so many wild animals,
That deserve to be chained and beaten down,
With skins and hides and ivory that the marauding beast might profit.
That angry red eyed beast in charge and at the very helm,
Yearning and dreaming riches, enslaving freemen and freedom itself,
Marching unceasingly forward with an insatiable appetite,
Craving to devour all the goodness from off the earth,
From beneath the oceans and all the continents too,
Striving as they creep stealth,
Cavorting with demons at night,
In their ivory palaces, wallowing in their immoral wealth,
Lounging in that horrid stead.

We need to be like those gypsy survivors,
That understand the need to move further into deep dark jungles,
Into those shifting dunes and arid deserts.
Be like the Roma, be like gypsies,
Dancing and singing our way through this corrupt and burning world,
Moving past all the heaped and piled masses of rotting corpses,
Venture out of the bombed out cities that civilization and progress,
Clad in all its evil armour,
Stomps upon with its jackboots,
Smothers and destroys with its iron fists,
Contaminates and corrupts with its drooling greed.

We need to be more like Roma,
Take on those gypsy airs,
Climbing into trees,
Playing all our wondrous music there.
Jingle and jangle all the way home,
Through the ruined slums and prisons,
Beyond the awkward Warsaw ghetto,
Yonder past tempest Stalingrad too,
Traveling at night,
Past those locked iron gates in frightful Washington
Beyond paranoid Philadelphia too.

Gather all our gypsy hearts together,
Ignoring colour and creed,
Never minding how good humans sing folk songs.
Take each good heart along,
On this survival quest,
Stepping o'er all this broken mess and shattered glass,
Dance lightly across all those mined fields,
Past all that barbed wire and tattered distress.
Embrace all the gypsies of the world, 
Proud comrades with our brothers,
Together acknowledging our common mother,
No matter our colour or language or sacred tune,
Black and white,
Pink and green and grey and azure blue.

We need to live and be like gypsies,
If we are to survive this advancing plight and so much war,
Gather together, take along all our gold and silver,
Shepherding our goats and horses too,
Lead innocence, show the way out of the blazing furnace,
Guide woman and children across the barren land,
Away from the broken stands and razed forests,
Like Moses did with his upraised sacred staff,
Piloting from one sacred water hole to the next,
Searching for that vacant promised land,
Where freedom and sanctity dwells,
Even if it takes us forty more centuries,
Even if we have to wander to Mars and back,
Because the devil will endlessly track us all,
Continue to hunt us down like wanton prey,
Guarded with his wild dogs and ruthless Jinn,
Until his dogs perish from hunger under the knowing sun,
Until the devil himself stumbles and falls,
Breaks his legs as he tumbles,
Dies of thirst under the blazing sun,
Abandoned and lost forever in the harsh desert,
That we have crossed like gypsies during dark night,
During dry seasons and blistering days,
While we study the stars,
Make light of the laughing moon,
Loving life and one another with our good hearts,
Holding near and dear, like precious life itself,
Our wandering and nomadic gypsy ways.