Mourning and Night

In the news, morning and night,
updates on the latest situations
unfolding half a world away, yet
closer than ever before as nations look
on in fascinated horror while one among
them descends into the madness of nature
itself gone awry, a government mounting
a frenzy of bloodshed against its own.
A civil war of uncommon brutality
where reason and compassion have been
buried deep within the dark recesses of
a mass psychosis, a raging will to destroy,
no cost too great to bear through the
unbearable horror of atrocities as
civilians, children, suffering agonies
beyond mere swift death, assaulted by
a regime that found their loyalty wanting 
and bringing to bear a base inhuman 
punishment the globe decries, exulting in 
its sanctimony, blaming the terrorists
whose goal is his extermination. Once more a
cataclysmic shudder of imperial defiance
to observing opinion as bombs and fighters
dismember, decapitate and clench tight the
living heart of a nation, destroying lives
and cities, pulverizing schools, hospitals,
mosques and homes for after all, what
need is there of their civilizing presence
when those who used them are themselves
extinguished as a totalitarian tyrant makes
a sweep of the detritus of humanity with
the audacity to find fault with his rule?