At the eleventh hour
of the eleventh day
of the eleventh month,
the guns were silent;
Armistice Day
for the war meant to end all wars.
The road to hell
is paved with good intentions;
twenty years later war blanketed the world
like the poppies in Flanders field.
Millions of lives, 
millions of dreams,
crushed beneath the feet of madmen.
Mankind is a misnomer;
man is not kind to his fellows.
Individually we find kindness,
but as a whole 
we are always on the brink of war.
It seems odd that after so many centuries,
we have not learned to live in peace.
We are on the precipice,
the eleventh hour is upon us.
We must find our way to
enduring peace
before Doomsday swallows us all.

~Elise Skidmore ©2023

photo of poppy field
Photo by Elina Sazonova on Pexels.com

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