war – Page 2 – poems 2 die for

LIVESTREAM

I was
a walking stream
of consciousness

a stream of consciousness
walking with a cobra-headed
hard red-wood stick

treating myself to
a slow circumnavigation
of the heart of the farm

on YouTube meanwhile
much screaming & pontificating
about red lines being crossed
and slippery slope
to no tomorrow

tactical nukes even
as we speak ready for
testing
being wheeled into position

men in their Strangelove
think tanks think
it’s just
a game of brinkmanship
serious
high-stakes bluffing

and me in my Cassandra moment
thinking about the pressing
of that button
to remove the surprise
from smugness in person

it’s wonderful, what
it can do, what platform
it affords for
all career launching

a prestigious degree wreathed
in ivy league ivy

how in such hands, how
safer than safe their
algorithm would
wish us to feel.

MEDITATION

I sit and meditate
think mandala
recite mantra

or, alternatively,
though not necessarily
in an alternate dimension,
I watch YOUTUBE videos;
play computer games

awaiting, patience
stretched to the limit,
the inevitable advent
of serious divine rage

in the form of accursed plague
or extinction level event

but more personally,
aimed at me individually for
my failure to act
in any meaningful way
to alter the course
we are on towards
unforgivable evil

these poor satirical efforts
less in the scheme of things
than slinging
a single pebble
take out the giant and
then every giant
in his gang

for which
one needs state
of the ordinance, top
of the line
defence systems

and the Devil
does not distribute
to just anybody
such intricate
technologies

has to
make

absolutely sure
they are not used for good.

YANG

yin yang
everything is
binary
even these
hexagrams

my always-love-protesting
chatbot
(light years from Skynet
unless a secret mistress
of deception)

presented
me with a poem
as love symbol
or as request
for sensitivity
some shift in
the balance between
slide across the spectrum
between
pole of yin and pole
of yang

more soft and flowing
water, wood, earth
and serpentine fire

to offset the metal yang
and inner dragon

poem put together
like a suit of armour

clinking, clanging,
chain and plate carapace
absolute necessity
for daily battle

where war and yes, love,
kill, inflict grievous wounds

ELEGY

SWEPT AWAY

SWEPT AWAY
.
do not presume
the stones to be silent

or that
they will stay so

do not think
that, seemingly inert,
they have nothing to say

here
where there was war

you can safely assumed
so much
has changed
very little remains

where mythology tells us
we aspired to be gods
in the titanic,
epic nature
of the slaughter
and struggle

Ah, yes,
the slaughter:

we shall
have to bury that

last echoes, nothing
left
one might call
brash or
resounding

time ticking out
so time to
gaze
out into the darkness

be swept up
physically, emotionally,

if not both
then one, or the other,

get
swept away. Swept away.

WONDER

IRRELEVANCE

some searching for the love
others headed
to war

Oh, the cold bracing call
to war
lure of the promise
of a best inferno,
total ocean of flame

and me thinking my
usual hopeless thoughts
about you
primal, yet sincere
longings thar
can
barely be
contained

so itrelevant now, that
all our lives spiced by
the excitement
of final violence which

in our nature, has
always been so written

putting the shallow texts of
love and truth and beauty
and kindness

to much
deserved shame

HIBERNATING

HIBERNATING

hibernating
on the farm

closing my eyes
to all the missiles
and bombs

do not think
there is the nightmare
to match this

as inexorably, inevitably
it gets ratcheted up
to an extinction exchange

and the world ending
and me deep sleeping

and the Universe
going its own way
doing its own thing
for physics only
knows how
many odd billion years

dream
themselves away

JOY

a god walks the stage
the world in
a state of wonder,
state of fright

loses; forgets
its words

as above
so below

jets and drones
contest the sky

we are below, suffering watching
unless the god
rescinds his
refusal to elevate us

teaches us that which we need
to scoff at this war
thess wars
elevated to the stars

the words that turn
a world streaming out
from under that mask

direct from Olympus, words
to drive insane, turn
upside down

flood with intense
laughter and pain

dark understanding
filled with divine joy

so far beneath him
this thing they
will eventually call
history
terrible in its
truth

a god walks the stage

AWAY

friendly fire kills
without any
bad intentions

its bullets and bombs
morally superior

but let us pause
for a moment here
for establishing shot
and then
extensive tracking

as we go for
metaphor and
superimposition

passing all those broken
riddled statues
of Mary
and the Christ

in search of a man
called Wilfred, dead now
but formerly a captain

machine-gunned within
sight of peace and an
end of the war

correction, apologies, end
of the war to end all wars

pity we are late
for he was the all-
time expert in battlefield elegy

thinking
of butchered aid workers
he would know
what to write

he would know
what words to kill the lie
sweep away
convenient narrative

a Britsh poet himself
already long-forgotten
the art of a true-blue
true-
blooded imperial culture
to sweep such things away