Justified

More and more
butterfly corpses litter the sidewalk
choking on the absence of oxygen
falling to their doom
beauty in motion
almost absurd in its sudden stillness

A familiar refrain
on the failures of man to give wing
to potentialities
slumbering in the poorest of people
as measured in caricature
rather than character

We are Cain and Abel
amnesiac in our inability
to recognise our own brothers
while we somnambulize
through our ragged breaths
wheezing against the fumes
that keep us drugged and dreaming

We murder with pen and sword
drawing arbitrary lines in the sand
to maintain the proper colour of things
in the properest of places
and call it justified