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 ...

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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?

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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

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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...

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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...

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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.

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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...

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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..

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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 ...

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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...

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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...

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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 ...

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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...

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