This is not what they died for

You killed God with religion.
Once weaponised,
We lost our connection,
To paradise.
You killed our compassion
As we made our confessions,
You terrorised.

Then you killed religion with capitalism,
Its golden carrots always just out of reach.
With a shiny new heaven, you kept us all chasing,
No shortage of those willing to preach.

reducing the human to a cog in the system,
You exploited our inborn need for connection,
And fostered division with nationalism,
'til it seemed there could be no escape.

Now when things get edgy, you whip out your flags,
And punish the doubters with patriotism.
You nourish the limitless weaponry tree,
With tonnes of manure and warped morality.

And the cross is replaced by cenotaph and poppy,
The opium numbing our brains and our bodies.
What was once mourning and a promise of peace,
Is now just a promise that wars will increase.

You need us to believe in the sacrifice and slaughter,
To ensure we deliver our sons and our daughters.
Our love makes us blind to the abuser's control,
So we do their bidding and lose our own soul.

This is not what they died for.
This is not what they died for.

And in your glorious isolation,
You are not able to tell,
That the heaven you've always been chasing,
Has left us all living in hell.

And even you in your ivory towers,
You might think that you've got it made,
But you and your kind, the blind leading the blind,
Like all of us, to ashes and dust you will fade.