Damage is Done

Mobs are unkind, bent as they are on destruction
Cruelty dispensed in the rush to street justice
Blood in the sinews fully primed for action
Apt to casually cut short the lives they surround
Swiftly maiming in sinister displays
On the flimsiest of evidence, wrath lays to waste
The chants that lead to screams
Proud weapons of the unquiet
Pain for certain. And the damage is done

Soul tectonics
Comes the taint of shame in the aftermath
The aftershocks on the psyche
Their effect lingers even on the most righteous
Despite themselves, perpetrators join victims
And off the curdled ground painted with their handiwork
They pick up scar tissue and red ligaments
To be imprinted on later remembrances
Thus bound together in disharmony, they stagger forth
Heavy with the burden of the extra weight
And the gods, for they are watching, exact a further price
The wounds of the beholder will not heal so easily
Regret perhaps. But the damage is done

Damage is Done, a playlist

A soundtrack for this note (spotify version)

• My Sin by Hank Mobley
• Aftermath by Ronny Jordan
• Remember by Hank Mobley
• Damage by H.E.R.
• My Sin by Hank Mobley

See previously The Wages of Thermidor and June 4th

File under: mobs, violence, crowds, blood, street, crime, memory, culture, observation, perception, social, Buyer's Remorse, shame, cruelty, poetry, toli

Writing log. May 1, 2022