We enter, the conquering heroes,
drive quickly through the city’s core.
We leave a crude division in our throes.

We expected flowers, not blows
of an angry mob, to be adored.
We enter, the conquering heroes.

An old man sits in a small café, he knows
what will come of this, a festering sore.
we leave a crude division in our throes

that builds, wells up. We depose
a tyrant. You’re a new tyrant they roar.
We enter, the conquering heroes,

at home, on TV we watch the blows
rain down on the prisoners, huddled on the floor.
We leave a crude division in our throes.

We do not see bodies arrive, only rows
of new headstones, the President will say no more.
We enter, the conquering heroes;
we leave a crude division in our throes.

First appeared in Thema, Vol. 20, No. 1 (2008), and later in The Right to Depart, Plainview Press (2008)