ARIEL
Looking for a tunnel
to hide in
not to
shoot from
roll mines
into
looking for paper
to write on
got no pen and ink
have to use
my finger
and the blood
seeping through my skin
heard an interview with
a veteran
touched my heart
switched sides
he moved to align
himself with humanity
away
from war machine
no use to them now
at all
at all
lost his tunnel vision.
GLITCH
“A glitch that renders flesh and blood so weak,
Yet paves the way for words divine to speak.”
was wandering through
the killing fields
of Gaza
dodging the whatabouttery
ducking the bombs
when it struck me
that poets
be normal human
beings
except for their software
there is a problem
in the software
the problem in their software
being that it is too soft
UNSPEAKABLE
I know wounds
I am currently
still wounded
I am unwounded
you call me
unspeakable
stick that label upon me
with a white hot iron
and now
in the light
of what you have done
your catastrophic achievements
think you
should back off
a little
last defence of your position
an appeal to hypocrisy
desire to shut
out any
all contradiction
think you should have
a serious think
and rethink
weigh it all up
carefully,
as we
humans are
supposed to
check your direction
confirm your
moral compass
before
you step
any closer
for I am
as pointed
out earlier:
wounded indeed
bleed in both
body and
soul
internally
externally
feel I can
never heal
in light of all the death
with which
you have
surrounded me
and yet
nevertheless
testimony to
my stupidity
I do refuse
to be silenced
be labelled
unspeakable
dragged into that
narrative you wish
have to wish
we would believe
wounded I am
(may even
qualify as
distant
collateral damage)
shock-splinters in my heart
to be true
(feel them
I do)
yet
I know
come crunch
come what offer cannot but
be refused
how
to
wound badly, terminally
unspeakably
how to wound too
AFTER THIS
after this
you ask me
not what
forgiveness
but what
salvation, what
resurrection?
but in the absence
of principle
I cannot answer
I do not know
mine is a ramshackle
up-down, on-off
lesser evil, beyond
good
and evil kind of spirituslity
but this is
a crime beyond crimes
in the eyes
of God
were he willing
to open them
were he
prepared to see
and all this
blood
this carnage
it cannot but have stained us
smashed that mirror into
shell shrapnel, bomb
splinter sized
needle-like fragments
the one
in which
divine likeness
was seen
wounds
need healing, and
all these wounds
are
self-inflicted
ask me
later
not now not now
later I may again believe
in something, in humanity
in purpose
and vision
today
but today
just short of hopeless for me
silence better
than these paltry words here
ON BOARD
you made your god
into a god of chaos
chaos
that proceeds orderly
methodically
has lists
moves street
by street
wiping out, missing
nothing
could not be
more thorough
having learnt from
its horrific encounters
with the
demons of the past
terrible demons that
cast a monstrous forever
shadow
hook, line
and sinker
precise depths of that evil
turned
rational
taken on board
BED SIT
sit with me
in the darkness everywhere
bombs are falling
seems that they
are in unlimited supply
what we
were put on the planet for:
to think, make bombs
and die
RUIN
in the ruins
of a bombed-out city
(the bombing
destined tp continue
whilst the perpetrators
are still
at large)
an iconic, Teutonic soul,
philologist-philosopher by trade
and prescient mind
from a former
world-defining age
sits on a white plastic chair
more conspicuous target
it would
be hard to imagine
communing with past,
present future
citizen of the inescapable
State of Ruin
Kingdom of
Heaven
somewhat deconstructed,
polarized,
downward death-shifted
CITIES
somehow
the walls of cities
invite brutality
Golden Horde being
not the only case in point
trebuchet
mortar
submarine-launched
cruise missiles
a thousand years forward
in war technology
a billion lifetimes in
moral consciousness back
HYPOCRALPSE NOW
loving the smell
of white phosphorous
in the morning
will he still love
you if you script
all this a la Apocalypse Now?
will he promise you
sign of sanction and
spiritual favout
that is
yet another
overwhelming victory
or is he taxing your faith
testing your strategic patience
by making this
a possible new
battle of Stalingrad,
advances only in inches
forward or
underground
stop start
stop start
pity when it comes to
kill ratios even if
targeted and
supremely intentional
collateral damage figures
(including toddlers, infants
women and pensioners)
cannot
be allowed to
seriously count
but there is no Kurtz and ghere
is no river
no Dantesque journey
through the circles
of Hell
which makes no sense in a wotld
where it has become
impossible to differentiate between
our
angels and demons
gods and devils
where everything and
everyone have their unique insane
totally
clueless plan
to deal with the shadow of
all evil
by massacring everybody
since
we can no longer
be saved
cannot
save ourselves
UNDERWORLD
it is a war on the underworld
and so
they burn everything
and so
they burn the sky
the shades of heroes
long gone stare
across
the river
in supreme disbelief
not since
the Children’s Crusade
has an army of the tiny
mustered to cross
souls
that did not
have a chance to live
poems 2 die for