“Dry bones can harm no one”—
So sang the voice from Wasteland’s shore,
But I have walked the killing fields
And know the lie that silence bore.
The bones do speak, though long decayed,
Unearthed by hands not theirs to claim,
Given tongues by zealot priests
Who mouth their prayers and speak their shame.
In Kosovo’s fields, in Gaza’s dust,
In Armenia’s buried grief,
Across the sands of Erbil’s night,
The dead are stirred—not for relief.
They rise not in their own defense,
They rise to justify the blade,
Embroidered with fresh fable-cloth,
With memories half-new, half-made.
The Promised Land is paved with skulls
That never sought a throne or crown.
The gospel of the grave is preached
In voices never theirs to claim.
The soul-stained call them forth once more—
These ventriloquists of vengeance
Make calcium speak of causes
The buried never chose to bless.
They cry for peace, yet hear their names
Proclaimed to summon death, not justice.
Their marrow plundered, their repose
Defiled while ancient wounds burn bright.
They do not ask to be avenged—
No whisper from the tomb requests
A mother’s tears be matched by some
New covenant of blood and fire.
Until we bury not just bone
But pride and myth and righteous sword,
The dead shall march in vengeful script
To scrawl our creeds in sacred dust.
Dry bones should harm no one—
Yet see how we conscript the dust,
Make weapons of our ancestors,
And brand our vengeance just.
Northcoast Antiquarian 