red onion

Baghdad is burning. The flames leap high and consume the television screen.
Wolf Blitzer's hair and beard are scorched and burned off. The smell
of burned human hair is unmistakable.

Baghdad is burning. I ate scrambled eggs for breakfast
while the flames encircled my kitchen table.
I couldn't tell the difference between the smell of scorched
flesh, and the sausage links.

Baghdad is burning. CNN showed a woman with her head on
fire running through the streets. Her children were already dead.
They died cowering under their beds, crushed beneath the rubble.

Baghdad is burning. The flames can be seen all over the world.
The Mosque temple crumples in the fiery carnage. The raging word
of Allah seeps beneath the wreckage and spreads like a dense, low cloud,
a fog of words filled with the blood soaked screams of the dead.

Baghdad is burning. What a success, says the righteous Jesus poppers
high on the lord their God. They didn't notice that Christ tore himself
off of that cross and walked away from all of this.
They didn't notice how alone
they are, a hawk circling on the wing for fresh prey.

Baghdad is burning, flames leap higher and higher until they touch the sun,
and consume it's light. And the moon can no longer be seen at night.

Baghdad is burning, and it is dark, all over the world, save for this
city in flames.