The Rhythms of War ...

Our leaders tell us war can be avoided,
but the past says different,
these leaders say wisdom will guide trembling hands, but where was this guidance previously?
hovering over the nuclear switch,
While the weight of our history presses heavy against the future,
a script we've read before,
tattered and frayed at the edges, blood-stained in the middle,
lives lost without pause.

These mighty Empires begin to fall and decline not with dignity,
but with the echoes and shouts of the desperate,
As they clutch at the last fragments of their power,
like broken glass cutting into a trembling fist.
Economies shrink while debt swells, promises empty and hollow,
while banners of "freedom" fray in the winds of the luming chaos.

Rising powers sharpen their teeth and prepare for the feast
on the bones of alliances formed in desperation,
silken agreements now unraveling in the heat
of trade wars and territorial dreams.
China's yellow brick roads stretch far,
binding continents in a golden snare while bridging indifference,
the West stumbles through days,
tripping over yesterday’s triumphs during nights of false comfort.

The war machine prepares while generals dream in algorithms now,
Old minds stepping to shadows as AI thought hums lullabies of control
over drones that dance across the sky,
but who programs caution?
Who codes regret?
A single spark,
miscalculated, misunderstood,
and the sky burns again, shadows and screams burnt into cold cement.

Oceans boil,
not from heat, but fury,
as Arctic ice melts into disputed borders,
and resource wars writhe in the depths.
The future generation drinks bitter water
from a cup cracked by climate's revenge.

Diplomats, hollow-eyed,
speak of "talks" and "sanctions,"
but beneath the table,
hands clutch at guns and knives.
Appeasement tastes of ash
a prelude, not a solution.

History's will say that Peace, is our inheritance, our new right.
what is peace really when it feels cheap and has worn too thin to cover the old scars that have never disappeared,
new wounds that burn.
The drums of this new war beat softly now, unheard in the distance
but still,
they beat when close enough there is unmistakable sound,
a rhythm we cannot unlearn.

And when the final ultimatum falls
in whispered threats and coded commands,
will we still feign surprise,
pretending the play was never rehearsed?