Defiance (For Elise Sunderhuse)

General Doom got another leg caught

He was arming kids, begging for artillery shells to kick around

And building white crosses to commemorate the martyrs' brigade

In the Red Crescent-bearing ambulances

It's better than working in the mines all day

One vehicle down

We were praising the Lord when we heard the report

Of the trucks and the cranes and the double-yellow lines

And the fear and the love and the violence dissolved

We're told that we've learned a great deal

And we're told that your loss is collateral cost

And stochastically inevitable

And the price that we pay for breathing, but we defy

Punk Haitians kicking under concrete

Charge their phones and send another text feed to the flotilla

And it's out, but time's not a disease

It's an ordered state. It's a firm substrate

It's a shocking priceless wasteland

And it's where we'll raise our kids and get lost and defy

Letters, pixels, texts

Crystallize and mutate

Patterns amplifying forever