Conflict (Remove filter)
Stolen dog
A soldier kicked down the door and stole a yelping dog,
the children sobbed while their mother cursed god.
Later the widows were blown out, the roof glowed red
against a ghostly bone white moon.
The dog curled itself to sleep beneath a different flag
after filling its belly for the first time in weeks.
This poem is based on an event I witnessed in the H2 area ...
Sunday 2nd June 2024 5:14 pm
Losing It
after Yehuda Amichai
If we think we are right
the sun may never set;
if we know we are right
then beasts could take our place;
if we say we are right
the towers will always fall;
and if, after all
after all we've
thought, known, said
and done
we're wrong -
who will stop us
when the time to make peace
has come?
Saturday 1st June 2024 11:40 am
Illusions
Pretend not to notice.
Pretend you don’t see.
Protect at all cost
your illusions of me.
Don’t read what I write
on the lines of my page,
you’ll only find flaws
that you’ve long wished away.
Just keep smiling at me,
I’ll keep smiling at you.
You be who you are
and I’ll do what I do.
I’ll try not to let
all the things in my mind
stray far fro...
Tuesday 20th February 2024 4:08 am
Dot To Dot
Dot To Dot
Join the dots all in a line
Where do they all lead?
Afghanistan
Land of failed empires
Defeated armies
Opium production
Terrorism central
Forget Lebanon
Afghan is number one
Ever since the 70s
The Soviets started it
All the rest added to it
You know the nations
Shall we bet who’s next?
from LIZARD SNAIL 124K
Nick Armbrister and other...
Saturday 20th November 2021 9:08 pm
Senshi (戦士)
My love is a two-edged weapon, wielded by insecurity and strikes with fear.
Akin to Pandora’s pithos, it remained concealed; destruction would only come of openly sharing it to the outside world.
My heart is shielded, once scarred by mistrust, now a lone vessel playing a broken melody looped:
Thump...thump...thump.
Just as soldiers march through wet trenches in p...
Tuesday 16th February 2021 1:15 pm
Being
He bows at her body, thankful and polite, acknowledges the service, plays the part.
She smiles at stories, smart enough to be cynical but hopeful enough to be happy.
He takes out a notepad and pretends not to watch for a reaction
As she reads his silver words
As she reads his mind through the blunt tool of his silver words.
He runs.
He thinks he’s wrong because she told h...
Friday 18th January 2019 5:49 pm
Calling Bluff
The shadows are getting smaller
You’re unable to continue to hide
You have as much luck as the cold caller
When your debt is paid, things will again be right
You’re on the way to misery
Trust me, I’m able to foresee
This fate that has become your distant destiny
One in which you’ll fall down before me
You bite the hand that helps you
Had the chance to quit to
...Friday 21st September 2018 8:48 am
Sky
Our friendship is like the sky
Sometimes,
It is cold and unbearable
Sometimes,
It is stormy and full of tears
Sometimes,
It lashes like lightning
Then it hurts us both
But just like the sky
It will always clear up
It will always be warm and bright
It will always remain blue and sunny
Because no matter
How many storms pass through,
How many lightning blades strike,
No matter how ma...
Wednesday 4th April 2018 11:59 am
Jealousys hold
Unhealthy thoughts they form and sworm inside my head, they all are of you and the things you never did or said, guided by jealousy, the short leash tightens on me, I'm wanting it to rip off my head, in bed at night alone, staring at my blank cell phone, the thought what you could be doing fills me with dread, they say trust is a must, I never understood all that fuss, oh I wish these thoughts wou...
Thursday 19th January 2017 12:07 pm
Poetic linings
We need to weave the silvery strands
of poetry that line life's thunder clouds
into a canopy to cover all humanity.
For I fear the storm that I see coming
and that we may not have seen
the worst of it quite yet.
Monday 13th June 2016 9:47 am
Resolutions Encore
Resolutions Encore
The year was never meant to be,
Not this year – it cannot possibly,
For deceased is how I am -
Dead before the man,
At least, that’s how I thought!
Pain killers make me retch,
The taste repeating an event
Outside this loan of life,
And my God I am married with wife,
Children too - all of whom I adore,
Yet I cannot help bu...
Saturday 4th June 2016 12:09 am
bombardment
hurry..hurry..
volatile flickering glim--
exposed and expiring
within trenchant
tangling convolutions
murmur..murmur..
fragile faithless prayers--
wrestled and relented
from incoherent
idling dissolutions
stumble..stumble..
Sunday 1st May 2016 12:16 am
Riding a Tiger
On face a sham normalcy
the core filled with dread
At a very cusp of no return
can’t help but forge ahead
All deemed plain pushover
how it ended up otherwise
None other there to fault
since caught in own devise
Those efforts painstaking
a well thought over intent
Ended in such an imbroglio
that no one could prevent
Resources all...
Wednesday 8th July 2015 8:58 am
Broken Doll
Broken Doll
Today was much like any other day -
I got up early, ate some bread,
drank milk from a chipped glass
and stared out of the broken window.
You let me play with a doll,
ragged like the future,
and when I got bored
you put it back in the cupboard.
There were words I didn’t understand -
but I already knew that words were lies
because you looked away from my eyes
when you p...
Sunday 18th January 2015 8:41 pm
Our Valued Lawn
You only really win, having lost.
On the front lawn, all is identical until you notice it.
Every other blade you see its 50 shades greener than your own.
Those shades depend on light. Those blades gleam off light refracted.
Interesting...
Who has the light?
Every day you look, you stare, you glare
with a drink, with a book, with a chair, with a care.
Your care, carelessly, mi...
Sunday 4th January 2015 10:42 pm
Bedtime
Some produce from sleep deprivation...
Eyelids fall and so do we
from this rope a wishful me,
No ground to touch, no cold hard floor
fully circle, no breaks, so sure.
Or is it warm?
Does it cushion the smash?
Cover sharp corners, prevent the thrash?
Then there's the harness
stopping it all,
Those big icey eyeballs
Keeping you cool
I don't want the harness
I just want the fa...
Monday 17th November 2014 8:13 pm
She Defeated Death
Sunday 2nd March 2014 7:43 pm
Unto the Somme
Entrenched
Behind failing lines,
These curtains of shrapnel and sharp steel
Conceal my misery,
So seamlessly, absently
I go on, numb, alone,
For sensation no longer blesses me.
Relentlessly, I force back my fear,
The absent tears never reach my cheeks
And thick blankets of earth and sand
Choke my cries, damp, pitiful.
I fall to the boards clotted with death
As my bre...
Saturday 27th April 2013 12:32 pm
Worlds Apart
Friday 8th June 2012 9:12 am
Breathe in the Dust
I have my own little piece of the world.
Sure, it has its problems, but nothin’ too much.
It has its pleasures and there’s more than enough.
And I’ll share them with you; I will share them with you.
So, put down that rifle, and put down that gun.
Let’s take back those words that hatred begun.
Let’s tear down those icons that make us ignore
The cries of our own, the cries of our ...
Wednesday 6th June 2012 2:45 pm
THEN JUST AS NOW
THEN JUST AS NOW
And so I looked upon the holocaust after all those years and I see a world torn apart by madness.
Names of places like Auschwitz, Katyn Wood, Dresden and Hiroshima read like the list of the dead.
But that is what they are, sixty years after Mankind’s darkest hour.
Today there is a new war, on terrorism and tyranny, brush fire wars from one place to t...
Thursday 3rd November 2011 9:17 pm
I BECOME NOTHING
I BECOME NOTHING
I ask how soon I will become nothing. When my sentiments tear me apart and bounce around my head like cannon balls from a faded war. I want to know so much more than what I’ve learnt in my forty years on this screwed up world, yes people do matter. If they didn’t, there would be no humanity, would there.
I want to go to Auschwitz and see where a millio...
Tuesday 4th October 2011 9:07 pm
War Losses
I feel maudlin today, from all the news of war,
such a waste of human craft we simply can't ignore.
Who counts the cost in real terms, without any disguise
we all know the lists of lives lost, hide so many cries.
For every man who lost his life, so many more were shattered,
with missing limbs and broken dreams amongst the debris splattered,
all around those hated IEDs ...
Wednesday 2nd June 2010 7:32 pm
Bitter Pills
The air grew chill as she sapped my will
with the heat of her words and manner
though it was all on the phone and I was alone
still my skin became redder and redder
With the heat of her words and her manner
My skin went quite taught and all was for naught
as no pause would allow me to reply
so I soaked up the rage which took such an age
till my mind all but...
Monday 1st March 2010 1:20 am
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