Shells On A Tuesday

Breaking dawn over a red-strewn coastline
Wreckage contains the ghosts of glory achieved
In defiance of a foreign invasion

A tattered standard still flies above a gutted ruin.
Black holes in the brick gape, drooling smoke
Like toothless mouths as pipes jut awkwardly.
Were there winners? Or only lesser evils?

Valiant men and women fought to stem the tide
but alas, nearly all were lost.
In the end there fell a desolate peace...
The peace of empty deserts which lie beneath the sun

Their vastness swallows sound, returning neither
Comfort nor nourishment...
Only a dread cessation of life which knows
Neither friend or foe...only dust.