Collateral Damage

You have such a latent anger
a furnace of swirling bile,
simmering, expectant
an ugly potion disguised by the camouflage
of past injustices,
stoked by a splintering ladle
upon which forgotten battles are etched.
I am too old
and my generation
learned a different tongue,
I bathed in optimistic waters
embraced the ebb and flow of chance,
my scars healed,
yours did not,
but once again
await their chance to spew,
erupting in the fresh air of opinion
darkening the skies, with
charcoal breath and choking
our fresh green shoots with cynicism
and shallow pathos.

© Graham Sherwood 03/2018