Tag Archives: war

GASHED

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

COTTON CANDY

COTTON CANDY

you must
fight and die
for cotton candy

fight and die
for a thin processed
meat sausage
jammed
   into role

you must
fight and die
to appease, suppress
our archetypal
shadow

for aeons old
collective guilt
            you no longer feel

must give your life
throw it away for nothing really
for your right
       to keep God for yourself
address him
   in your language by the very
name you gave him

translated from a foreign,
ancient text
you do not own
           and can no
                      longer read

but above all, hero,
                         it’s
for
    cotton candy
                         
                 

MARS

MARS

Ah, Mars
you red-eyed god
of grain
    and guns

here on the farm I smell
your secret cordite,
perpetual war
    concord, discord
forever
   in battle

circle of being, conflict
of life

    the trees, the corn
all
   akin to spears

as they stand in phalynx
tall and proud

except

      that is not it
at all

this is the shape of thinking,
seeing that you bring

reducing to raw red, rampant
green, crude
primary
       colours and basic shades

as if it were all one
monochrome chess
                           games

with its millions of moves
and permutations

light and dark on
       opposite sides of the board

split from each other
                drawn up in opposition
files and ranks

a most
    feudal arrangement