A Hundred Years

By: Gus Victoria

The voices call out to me…

Soft on the hill they call,

Where they bled once

Now grow flowers,

The homes they knew,

Some stand still,

More were rubble long ago,

Their shades are the shadows cast

From that Great War

That ended naught,

The promise of youth

By Empire scythed,

The brotherhood of mankind

By generals silenced,

There was Hope in ‘14,

Only the Reaper

Four long years later.

There was innocence in ‘14,

Only cynicism

One century later.

The world poured in idyllic times

Was tempered at the forge of hell

Before, in blood bathed, it emerged,

Changed,

Unknown,

Broken.

Blade of Resistance

By: Gus Victoria

In the fires of Truth hammered by Justice

The Blade of Resistance is ever forged new,

Tempered by Chaos,

Given strength by Law,

It is a weapon to destroy,

It is a force to create,

The Blade carried by heroes,

Sanctified by their blood

Spilled in struggle,

To make right the broken world,

To shed light where shadow dwells,

To vanquish evil in its home,

The Blade is heavy,

None may wield it alone,

Only the pure touch it long,

Madness is the price

The weak must pay,

Corruption poisons the soul

Of the Unjust,

The Blade destroys the Unworthy,

No armor protects from this wrath,

No lie is believed,

No crime unknown,

The Blade respects no positions,

It knows no rank,

The Blade of Resistance

Harbinger of Justice and Truth,

Herald of Hope

Where Peace and Love are remembered.

Johnny and Billy

By: Gus Victoria

Johnny Reb, Billy Yank, why do you fight?

Brothers in blue and grey,

Was there no other way?

Was division so deep

Blood was your only bridge?

Fighting for a nation,

Your nation,

A country neither of you had seen,

A country given birth by your sacrifice,

No confederacy survived,

A Union was transformed,

Johnny, your body lies still at the altar of history,

Your yell echoes through time,

Billy, your courage has ever only had one equal,

That of your fallen brother.

Dixie was our second birthplace,

A baptism in fire,

Johnny and Billy did you know then?

What your struggle meant?

Generations pass,

And your memory is sacred,

Your sacrifice hallowed,

No Confederate,

No Rebel,

No Yankee,

Johnny and Billy,

Only Americans.

Bellicose Harvest

By: Gus Victoria

Cold steel plows the land,

Blood soaks the soil

To grow the terrible harvest

That shades will reap,

The heroes fight no more,

Enshrined in glory,

Buried in earth,

Gaunt figures of State

Cry their valor

To the living.

The dead cannot object.

Gratitude flows from noble hearts

Beatifying the fallen,

To fill halls of honor,

No justice stands

To give form,

Only destructive chaos reigns,

Stalwart against humanity,

Darkness and the thick fog of regret

Sacrifice the future

Of a forgotten dawn,

Love drowns

As bullets fly,

Love cries,

As hope dies.

Custodian of Justice

By: Gus Victoria

Revolutionary of mind

Revolutionary of heart

Love is thy currency

In a bankrupt world

That seeks to devour

The light it suppresses

The life it oppresses

Gorging on the foul refuse

Of State.

Sustained by its crumbs

Strengthened by its injustice.

As a blade

Tempered in the fire,

Sharp to make bleed,

Strong for the cut

You are an instrument

Of righteous anger

Of divine retribution.

Revolutionary, you destroy

And chaos you bring

So that others may build.

Revolutionary you save

Those cast off,

So that others may heal.

Hero to the hopeless,

Scourge to the opressor

Friend to the friendless

Custodian of justice.

The Horsemen Ride

By: Gus Victoria

Death and War are horsemen only Love can unseat.

Steel and lead tear through flesh

Doing damage in this world

As hatred and violence do more

To murder the soul

That no weapon of man

Can ever touch,

The essence of man dies

When the Creator’s gifts are used

To murder the Creation.

God dies in the assault

That embraces evil

As it discards justice

To redress imaginary wrongs.

When the innocent are dead

The angels weep.

The horsemen ride

Only when Love is absent.

Crimson Fields Future Yields

By: Gus Victoria

It’s a long, long way from Tipperary,

The mademoiselle from Armentiers

Has long been silent,

No broken French

Spoken through halting English

In nearly a century,

Quiet the fields have been

Overgrown with grass and flowers,

Life green and colorful

Where once was dark and dead,

No vaporous clouds stalk nearby

And Johnny has long since marched home,

Still we remember

The sacrifices made

As in blood was paid

The balance of the struggle.

Not for ideals,

But to found upon crimson fields

A future of potential

Nearly destroyed by industrialized death. 

Words on War

By: Gus Victoria 

War, the blood-sealed oath

Of a people to die,

Forsaken peace

To conquered smoke,

Captured in a memory,

Gone in an instant,

Remembered today,

Forgotten tomorrow,

Repeat the dance,

Death the partner

Leads ever faster

Despair and sorrow,

Gifts to the wedded pair,

Hope beaten,

A casualty of consequence,

A prisoner of circumstance,

The dagger buried

In a heart to the hilt

Is the only mercy promised,

Is the only release given,

Mars rules a vale of tears,

And shadows stalk,

Bridesmaids to Death,

Harbingers of Destruction,

Doubts fill the empty minds,

As they try

To remember a pastoral past,

A remnant of hope,

A sliver of peace.

Then the cannons roar

To quiet the rebel heart

Still whole,

The cries rise

Up through blackened skies

And no one pretends to hear,

We burn together,

We die alone.

War is our inheritance,

Death our birthright,

And Hope…

Hope is…?