The Promise

The problem is the promised hope for peace 
as children we're taught to believe:

 the Christmas pause,
bright spangled blooms that fill 
infected rooms;
the Christmas cheer we drink 
to deaden loss.

 Friends dead and family gone,
I lie in bed
and imagine cessation of war. 
Dreams don't last long;
the killing machine, triumphant,
moves on, moves on..

 The TV is our cathedral,
our sacred stage 
where violence is the main attraction.

 What is our need?

 We once were a moral people,
thought ourselves Christian.
Now the promise of freedom and justice
like hope recedes.

 Not by God have we been abandoned. 
God has been abandoned by us.