Scarcely few remember
Those horrifying scenes
The six o'clock news
Broadcast in our living rooms
The horror of it all
Blood drenched stretchers
Million mile stares
The terror in their eyes
A war long gone by
Brought to us in living color
War had seemed so remote
Fought in faraway places
Until a place far away
Called the Nam
Body counts on the news
Fathers, sons, and brothers
Lovers, husbands, friends
Never to come home
Names carved deep upon the wall

A blue bonneted bandicoot with a sea calf
(amortized in blank verse)
scuttles amongst major malapropisms,
An object lesson of despair for students of the Classics.

In the Month of Hershwan in a study far from that place,
A Hebrew scholar paints calligraphy on a cloisonne
Clock. He expatiates Wallhalla – a Last Supper for his spectacle.

Adored by femme fatale (and others) for its chanced rarity,
They hunt for the preciosa, unbeknown that the bells are tolling.

No painkiller can bring relief,
No psychologist expresses belief,
Though it's in the back of my mind,
An enemy stabbing from behind,
No justice for this unfair crime,
No compensation for the time,
Lost to sleepless nights,
Fear of bright lights,
Tears at upsetting sights,
Those feelings of unrest,
I’m not at my best,
Yet being put to the test,
By this invisible threat,
Whose anguish I cannot forget,
With every return, I face regret,
Having me in disbelief,

Assaulted by unending stimuli
Compelled into merciless awareness by
a collection of rogue characters
consuming your attention
unforgiving and unaware
completely apathetic to your torment

since felicity is first amongst the faculties

it will never need you
to find a golden calf
in El Dorado
or a lost penny on the beach.

when spring-time comes
my beagle skateboards for the World Cup,
and kisses aren’t a better father-land
than wishes

undignified i sweep by all irregularities
(don’t crypto-analyse this)

It occurred to me
as I came across another
interminable entertainment slaughter
unfolding on my so-called smart TV

That the carefully crafted
blood and pain and fear I saw
was the same identical engulfing maw

of hatred murder rape and torture
that fills almost every media item
in our despairing poisoned broken land.

How much violence do they want
to pollute our daily lives with,
How much horror is enough
to sate the brutality of profit?

I am your divine motivation,
Incensed, the only white ghost you sense daily,
The invisible sharpness of pain you feel thinking of me;
Triggered by the sudden death of my social media presence;
Imagination haunted;
Longing escapes into the graveyard;
Together with prayers of resurrection.
I am your buried treasure in the movie of life;
Dualism coveted--
my invisible citizenship on earth, and -
Roaming free with ghosts in another universe,
distanced from you, was it by choice?

I am the sun, I am the sky
The light that shines with wonderous eyes
I am the moon, I am the stars
The meteors that shower Mars
I am the earth, I am the roots
The trees that tower flowers bloomed
I am the rock, I am the stone
The minerals that hold below
I am the North, I am the South
That gives direction to each cloud
I am the wind, I am the breeze
The elements that flow with ease
I am the fire, I am the heat
Igniting dreams that spark each beat
I am the birth, I am the breath

I was standing in a corner
draining the vein, you see
When out from the wall, stepping slowly
came a man of pure ebony

Plain and black and not there, but he was...
I saw him you see, was I dead?
His eyes were a blank, didn't see me
but the emptiness filled me with dread

The man sleeping under the plastic
moaned low, and Reaper touched lightly
He lost the race, another day of life
The man gasped just once, so slightly...

A whistle follows her down the street
like a puppy going through puberty
Various voices of admiration
aged timber and saplings alike
rustling their leaves and shaking branches

Unaware of the havoc caused by her very presence
she strode straight through the resolve
of every married man on the street
to steal bits of heart, and feed imaginations
let loose in the night