The water is Still and Sparkling

the AC is silent as dust,

tame media outlets remarking

which one of these suits can we trust?

 

The translators verbose and inventive

sit idly waiting on words,

a settlement holds no incentive

so enthused, they resolve to throw curbs.

 

Front lines are bloody and broken,

of talking, there’s none to be heard…

you’re dead or you’re merely a token

of losses already incurred.

 

They’ll talk while the bloods bleeding out,

and they’ll dine while the metal’s in flight

despite all of the peace that they spout,

they’ll steer clear from the fray of the fight.

 

 

Regard your hands with disgust.

Idle, they are the tools of wicked thought…

 

Your mind wanders the contours of things forbidden,

misused, it writes a script for dormant horrors…

 

the seed and the active ingredient repel,

whilst psychopathic imagination permits all…

 

the membrane of restraint is gossamer thin…

a butterfly wing betwixt heaven and hell

between war and peace

 

that moment between the idea and the act,

before a life or the world entire might change…

 

In those quiet spaces of strength or surrender

lives are shaped or destroyed

that know not each other.

 

 

 

 

I come awake, sunlight banishing the night,

clawing at curtains it smears the shabby walls…

the debris of yesterday best forgotten offends my sight,

relentless optimism cares not where on it falls.

 

The fog of memory lifts, dreams combust in vampiric flame.

I am adrift, ripped too early from interstellar torpor.

It’s not that heavenly bodies could be held to any blame

when sometimes they interrupt, but “please no fucking more”

 

The street won’t relent for birdsong or for breeze,

tongues and footfall percuss unconcerned with my demise…

I curse the brutal concrete and give worship to the trees

denying gods my forfeit who let such horrors rise.

 

Repel the prying rays, permit the darkness stay,

that I might curl one more dream around a world asleep…

to slumber through the noise and the ravages of day,

and not to wake in this one, more damage here to reap.