1.

Flames can't put out
the city's fire

Fists won't block
the opponent's hits

Swords could never
heal the bleeding flesh

2.

we joked and pocked fun at the faces on the street
close to midnight at the intersection where hookers prance

we took the tram to your suburb and I watched you sing
the silly musical's tunes with the most lucid voice
I'd ever felt, in reverence of

your eyes, big enough to engulf the night's solace
your smile, generous enough to gorge my restless ranting and replace it with a relieved sp heat-felt laugh. So
tab without interrupting your joyous music
I named and anointed you
the angel, the only one
laughing and singing amongst the city's cunning
downcast killers.

3.

they keep persisting

that flames could fend off fire
that fear could forsake their horror
promising annihilation and a vision
of crops of corpses collected near the enemy’s bombed villages and burnt farms
compensating for their own dead. But

How could a bullet stop another bullet?

4.

Victories aren't won with bombs but revived
Through redemption from the ashes of defeat.

or so I heard between the lines of your song, angel
as our tram passed over the bumps and approached your house.