DAVID SWEET - Masks

MASKS

It will come to pass
On a particularly foul smelling day,
Mankind will say,“Enough! Enough!
No more to slay.”

The stench is so bad,
The air so foul,
We‘ve buried enough pieces
With the trowel.

The grave diggers they knew
from centuries before,
The uselessness of the chains,
The torture, the gore.

Slaughter them all,
Annihilate the race!
Take off the masks,
Look beyond the face.

“Take off the mask;
Not what this seems.”
“I'm better than them,
I’m a man of means!”

We fight the cancer,
We replace the hearts,
“It’s a big deal,” the headlines read,
“Politico farts.”

Look to the person,
The real soul there.
Carefully remove the color, the thread,
The society air.

Slowly and softly
on a distant day,
Humankind will remove these masks,
And put the hate away.

Take off the mask
And look to the eyes.
Past the filters
Which have caused this disguise.

Put there by teaching,
By infesting, not fate.
Hatred and extermination,
Are but a few served on this plate.

So simple so far,
Is this not true?
But there is another trick,
Brought by the deceptive shrew.

Inside the mask is
A complicated array.
There is even a mirror,
Looking your way.

What does this mean...
To scorn so much?
The mirror is there
To keep you in touch.

It is not complicated,
But you must understand:
Use the mask,
And you too will be damned.

Not to hell,
But to the beliefs you project.
These are mirrors indeed
Of your own private wreck.

Those who hate
have much fear.
Remove the filters,
Remove the mirror...