Tag Archives: war

FOOL YOURSELF

FOOL YOURSELF

don’t fool yourself
you are

not worth anything
not according to
this system
of reckoning

able to be given meaning
taken into
consideration
except perhaps
as casualty, as fatality,
statistic to be loaded into
collateral damage battle
assessment to
figure out the balance
of power
how our beautiful law
of attrition is
shaping up,
       working out

how your slaughter night
be the absolute difference
between defeat
and victory

and
with victory
absolute vindication,
proof that we are fighting
on the side of God

MOON

MOON

only a spring recoil away
from evil in motion

truly malign action
genocidal event

for which
     technology off
on a whim serving as the
great multiplier

distance from the blood
that sticky sweet to
the touch
      never gets washed off

but what
the eye does not see

the heart can Enola Gay over
stay fuzzy, misdirected

as from over the hill
over the horizon

they send the first strike
that removes all the worry
of retaliation

and there it is
engine of war, motor
of history

carting us off over
a shameful moon

CEMETERY ROAD

CEMETERY ROAD

cemetery road
ultimate
cul-de-
sac

for here
ages of souls
slumber
sleep

sounds of war in the distance
not too
far in
the distance

no one not
in that cemetery
can recall the
days the Nazis
brought their blitz
to Manchester
now under
the flag of St George
fascists of new kind
are fighting their way
into the city
Oxford Road and
all those universities
turned
I fear
into our British Stalingrad

oh, these ghosts,
do they see, sense
any of this
are they disturbed

on which side would
they fight
for which cause
would they fall

imagine themselves
dying once, twice,
thrice
many, many
times

since already dead
and my great war grandfather
what
would he
make of this

thing surely
beyond his comprehension

so
beyond yours
beyond mine
beyond all of
us

comrades, enemies
too divided here, now

to
share this poem
begin to talk

DEVICE

DEVICE

it’s good that politicians
measure blood exactly

know to the recurring decimal
how much blood
resides in
an eye
      when
exchanged for another eye

or a liver, spleen
or a brain

or a fat ton of innards
ripped out of the belly
they were
always in by
lethal fragmentation
               weapon

or anti-personnel
explosive device

the weapons market considers
rather nice

LIVESTREAM

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

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

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