ROSE?
is that
a rose
or is it
a bullet hole?
red rose
red rose
so many of them
slaughtered in the snow
days of
York and
Lancaster
tried to stitch those
wounds together
but blood still leaking
through that tapestry
carnage
somehow still
in your
poetry
freeze
framed you thought
for all
of history
not forever displaced
from theme to theme
SHORTCUT
taking a shortcut
across the river
to the recruiting office
need to get there
before the apocalypse and
before closing time
running across the river
and through the rainforest
where
I can die next
to the bombed-out Church
like Sergeant Elias
defending freedom and
Democracy, for
the salvation of humanity
need
to put my
life on the line
before
closing time
cpuld have been dropped
by a purple haze bird with
voice
of a mini-gun
but my feet just
brushed the surface and
much to my My Lai rapture
I had
reached ths other side
about to enlist staightout
but they needed
to first test
my morality
wanted no Sergeant Pepper
dreamer imagining
peace upon
the
world
community in our time
all you needing
number nine
and me
heading for the station
but it closing
vanishing from
me
like the thing just apocryphal
thing
a complete mirage
and me
passing cross after
cross and
pyre
after pyre
no doubt in my mind
this the last battle, the finsl war
in the midst of fire and
death and blood
something feels reborn
COLD JOE
Joe
you are old
you are old
your brain
is cold
seems you need
something
thermonuclear
to give
it a spark
get it working.
GASHED
a butterfly
flapping its wings
can tip
the scales
in a chaos dynamic
as can
as many bombs and shells
fired and dropped
onto an area
the size of a postage stamp
as dropped on Laos, Cambodia
and Vietnam entirely
to save humanity
from itself
lucky
we have
the power of
these skygods
to look out for us
this
the most angelic
of all butterfly effects
UNDESERVED
take it away
take this away
keep
well to yourself
I refuse to read rhis
we refuse to read this
you have nothing
to sell
you havs sold everything
this poem is immired in
bloodshed and murder
holy lies,
false propaganda
the slaughter of poets
right next door, through
the barbed wire
right outside
your secure (impossibly
insecure)
contrived
golden cage
take them awsy
these poems, your writings
this so-called poetry
forgive me
forgive us
if we give them
the contempt we feel
where you tell us images,
symbols,
metaphors
we see
only blood, find only
complicity
no matter how much you
tell yourself
do everything human
and barely human
to convince us
it is
undeserved
and so
plesse go
we csn suffer you no longer
take your sad, broken
failure of
a Muse with you
and
just disappear
REFAAT
so now
they have resorted
to killing poets
because
the pen is mightier
than the sword
it is said
and they took that literally
and
as is well known
James Bond carries
his old Q branch
speciality
of rocket-
launching pen
nothing
more deadly
which
you know,
we know
every spy agency knows this
it is something that
military intelligence
even one
caught false flag asleep
at its post
has prepared for
extensively
trained for
exhaustively
knows
only too well
and how can
target
be a poet
if they are all animals?
that is the syllogism for you
to
take to heart
the
reactive-armour
heart they
gave you
as you plough through
guilty humanity
steel-skinned in
your Merkava
kampfwagen
hunting for the tunnel
will take you down to Hell
where
poets, great poets,
will all be waiting
to raise a few things,
take issue with you
by hook
or by crook
endeavour to persuade you
that there is
something in
this voice, about
this speech
that justifies itself
KING OF SWORDS
War is
not part
of my nature.
Said
many prayers
had it
excommunicated.
Hiroshima
is not
my business, neither
is it in my chemistry
my molecules do not
resonate with that
Einstein equation, are
left stone cold by
Oppenheimer’s
Gita paraphrasing
should you, when you
slip curved Katana blade into
my hand
I become aware
of the gravity
way
beyond my capacity
very thought
of shearing, slicing flesh
turning
my fingers to sushi
for a moment
but then the power
and the craft
such beauty in steel
steeling my spirit to point
I can do anything
kill or
be killed let those
ancient dice roll
for here
the rush comes
goes
and maybe wounds, maybe
death, perhaps
slaughter and havoc
maybe
not a scratch, blood
to expatiate
peace in my heart: who knows,
can hazard
a guess how true
and longlasting
sigh of regret even
in victory with the sheathing
of such
a blade.
KING OF SWORDS
War is
not part
of my nature.
Said
many prayers
had it
excommunicated.
Hiroshima
is not
my business, neither
is it in my chemistry
my molecules do not
resonate with that
Einstein equation, are
left stone cold by
Oppenheimer’s
Gita paraphrasing
should you, when you
slip curved Katana blade into
my hand
I become aware
of the gravity
way
beyond my capacity
very thought
of shearing, slicing flesh
turning
my fingers to sushi
for a moment
but then the power
and the craft
such beauty in steel
steeling my spirit to point
I can do anything
kill or
be killed let those
ancient dice roll
for here
the rush comes
goes
and maybe wounds, maybe
death, perhaps
slaughter and havoc
maybe
not a scratch, blood
to expatiate
peace in my heart: who knows,
can hazard
a guess how true
and longlasting
sigh of regret even
in victory with the sheathing
of such
a blade.
HAPPY FAMILIES
we were playing
happy families
in the darkness
buried, bleeding
starving
to show that we are
humsn
do what humans do
get bombed to bits
buried alive
by other humans
who contest our right
to be like them
to think
and bleed and love
and feel
trying to do
what humans do
buried alive in
a flattened town
thankful at least that
unlike
so many we
may yet survive
if and when
they dig us
out
playing the cards that
we have been dealt
to win
the gsme you need a set
death and judgement and
the devil and
the falling down
.
cough the thick debris
dust out your lungs
and shout out what we all
do not, should not ever doubt
we are
all one family
BURN
life is not
margarine
spread liberally itself
across crisp, crusty
oven-
fresh bread
yellow golden
no
life is that
which sticks and
burns
rips off your charred skin
falling from Heaven
like napalm,
white phosphorous
or those cluster
people killers
that break into toy-size
teeny-tiny
run like Cristiano
fast and zig-
zag as
you can
across the entire Nou Camp
a bomblet
will find you
mind body problem
nothing in the body
the mind
has not figured, over-
thought
how to how to
horrendously kill
but the Sun continues
for millions of years
this avatar of hierarchy
will
seem so god-
like, be
forever shining
until
like us
it get old, fat and greedy
swallow
the Earth entirely
desperate for survival;
new stuff to burn
poems 2 die for