What happens
in the backwash
of history
is still history.
Each massacre
is ongoing;
theft and conquest
rumble on until
it’s all been taken.

After that it’s just canon
and it reads cleaner,
like an old film
people call out as
the way they used
to make them, not like
today. They say,

stars were bigger then
and the movies today
are too small, too focused
on bullets, blood, and
who dies and who lives
without considering
all the glory the big films
made so clear and so
lovely to think about.
They really love their movies,
their tales of glory. History
be damned unless
it can be shined like silver.

Lucky there is always
more history to polish,
shape, and put to work.
That lucky old sunset
is always there for them
to ride into at the close
of their film.