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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Should we walk by the waters edge
Or swim against the flow,
Where men in oceans, stained with red
Live shortened lives below?

Should we walk by the waters edge
Or break against the waves,
Where women flounder where they fled
In watery graves?

Should we walk by the waters edge
Or thrash against the tide,
Where children drown in sunken beds
Whose parents made them lie?

Should we wa...

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1.
Invent a war.
Something bloody and fratricidal.
Lose an uncle to barrel bombs
a brother to secret police.

2.
Three years in, flee.
Pack only what you can carry:
clothes, smartphone, children, cash.
Slip away at night, in silence.

3.
Take your leave of the flat, bakery, office,
rubble-filled streets where the kids once ran
shell of the cafe where old men
drank qahwa, played she...

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Perhaps…

Perhaps it‘ll be over

when I dare to open eyes

blinded by the centuries

of imperialistic lies.

When the bodies have been buried

underneath their rubble rooms

and the children all lie sleeping

In their bleak nursery tombs.

Perhaps I will be happy

with my name written on a rocket

that makes its way to Syria

in some war monger’s pocket.

For ho...

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it’ll be the comfort of the saturday afternoons of your childhood
sat in front of the TV with bread and dripping
watching John Wayne set the world to rights with a gun
it’ll be Kenneth More on tin legs reaching for the sky
with a re-mix of stirring music Vaughan Williams would kill for
it’ll be a tearjerker in the final reel
where you know the hero’s going to die
but his girl will remember ...

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