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Poetry- The Revolution Lingers

The Revolution Lingers
(2005)

It is in the air
like fresh cut dewy grass in the summer
but it is not a pleasant smell, only just as horridly vivid
It is the smell of stale iron
The smell that blood sometimes leaves behind
The one that you taste sometimes
when you lick a wound when you were a child

It is everywhere
In your neighbors eyes stands the fear
Another day of hiding from the violence
Yet although it was gone
It wafts occasionally by, in the wind
And your neighbor shivers visibly
and then retreats within the confines of the shelter

It is everywhere
In your family’s conversations
All they talk about it who died
and the politics associated with the revolution
You fear that it is the subject they will come to know intimately
And forget that they have a real life
even after all the fighting has stopped

It is in the air
The revolution lingers
A sickening poison slowly eating at you
like a fish nibbling on food
No one escapes its shambled mess
Everyone is infected
from the just born baby to the martyrd vigilantes