The management of savagery

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There seems nothing more civilised than the management of savagery,
remote and air conditioned.
Once separated from its delivery by sail boats and oceans,
by wax seals and emissaries.

Now only satellites and microwaves disperse the shock waves.
Cobra delegates are traumatised in real time as targets fall,
their lattes cool as does their blood
but “Fair Trade” product keeps their conscience clear.

We on the other hand are tools of necessity,
clinically educated…cold as hollow points.
Through us their message flows like the bullet through the barrel,
the recoil never reaching back to them, is lodged in us.

Go-Pro Call of Duty whores, accountable only for our failures,
Justifying the absence of target acquisition.
So sorry that we failed to kill for our sleeping masters,
sorry that they wake to the news of survival not death.

And now with that memory, we cannot sleep or face our children,
I can’t vote without the bile rising from my gut.
That my mark for them permits them murder,
that my hands can never wash clean.

Yet they stand clear and free of my crimes,
they absolve themselves of my savagery
and look on me the savage,
that I be somehow dead yet still alive.

© Wlofgar 2019

Gently in the forest

Gently in the forest

Gently in the forest truths unfurl,
petals channel raindrops
fallen far above this world

Gently through the forest
we’ll venture you and I,
beneath the sheltered canopy
above the watchful sky,

Gently in the clearing
we’ll take some time to stare,
to pick a million starlights
and ponder what’s up there.

Gently on the pathways
I might teach you what I know,
that when I fall behind
you’ll know the way to go.

Gently in the forest
I’ll slowly fade to earth,
and hope our steps there taken
be some measure of my worth.

© Wolfgar 2019