by Susan Jarvis Bryant

The Dragon’s claw is slick with rawest red
From spoils that keep the greedy demons fed
With hearts from souls caught by the Dragon’s eye
Sold to a world that buys the Dragon’s lie—

A world that twists the gist of honest words
To hide the feasting beasts from senseless herds
Who bleat the mangled mantra of reform
Till genocide’s “a different cultural norm.”

When brains are washed in propaganda’s guile
Then backs are turned on tyrannies so vile
The slaughter of the Falun Gong’s dismissed
As devils deal in crimes that don’t exist.

So never let the Dragon normalize
Barbaric acts all humans should despise—
Massacre occurs when ears won’t hear
The sin concealed in spin that’s insincere.

* * *

 

Winner of the 2nd Place Award in FoFG’s 2021 Poetry Contest

Susan Jarvis Bryant is a church secretary and poet whose homeland is Kent, England. She is now an American citizen living on the coastal plains of Texas.