The future is a black hole.
It’s existence we cannot comprehend;
its magnitude
or longitude
we cannot suspend.
If we begin to move forwards
or throw ourselves backwards,
you’ll find we stumble upon the same thing.
The War of Man.
The ultimate fight for the ultimate gain,
for which we will suffer any vestige of pain.
A shot to the head is nothing
if you don’t wind up dead.
Syria.
Afghanistan.
Libya.
Iran.
I ponder as the war rages forth,
spilling blood and bile
and wiping every thousandth smile
from the faces of the children.
The television presents to us honourable men,
fighting and parading until the very end.
I once heard a quote, a line,
a sweet little treasure,
from someone:
that killing is killing,
whether done for duty, profit or fun.
Our men are brave, they were ready at the start
but our men must hide the blackest heart.
It seems so unimportant
at this moment in time,
almost an acceptable nature.
We keep it close by
with closed, sleeping eyes,
only ready to return to at the end.
We don’t understand but we accept;
where once we would have wept
we now simply stare.
The lights are on, but no one is there.
Nature.
Like the lion eats the roaming meat
and the homeless pick up scraps from the street,
our fathers,
and their fathers,
die.
Someone has to play villain
and someone has to play hero,
because that’s the way it’s always been.
Entertainment.
I’ve seen it all on the news but I don’t look anymore.
You ask me why,
I say because the world is depressing enough.
I wonder back in the olden days,
what the people were like,
what the food was like,
what sex was like.
It’s hard to comprehend,
to wrap an answer around the question.
It’s far too clouded by the here and now
to look and wonder how
for too long.
You can hear the cries of this century
in the commercials
in the songs
in the movies and the rest;
the times,
they really put us to the test.
I think we’ve failed.
In the face of diversity, we laugh.
In the face of terror, we flee.
In the face of one another, we fight.
The men die on foreign land,
the babies cry through broken sleep
and still we walk on;
we are told it’s the way to live
but in the process,
apathy puts our love to rest.
The souls of human beings
are plastic and dull,
and the world is getting full
because the only thing young people know
is lust.
There is little moral fibre to go around.
Children are run into the ground,
blowing smoke rings and ignoring things
that they don’t understand are vital.
A vital sign is more than mere pulse;
it’s independence and experience,
friendship and love,
ambition and compassion.
They sit on the walls and leer at the world,
ready to fight the second they’re old enough
to understand competition.
I sit and wait and feed them bait
and every time,
I pull another out of the black waves.
Your children are already dead.

†

I remember before I died,
the knife at my mother’s throat.
I remember them standing by the sink
and the only thing I dared to think
was that the world was making me sad.
There was birth,
which one never does recall –
a memory lapse that saves us from
the horror of it all! – and then awareness
came in a flash.
A click of the fingers,
and there I had grown, bigger and bolder,
my mind still my own.
Untainted by fury, passion or hate,
oblivious to the cruel, slow hand of fate.
All I could remember,
circling around my tiny head,
was that I was strangely alive
and my best friend was dead.

†

When young people become old
and the small become big,
the only option is to go forward.
Going backwards does not exist,
it’s not a button you can find on your phone
or television remote.
We have our choices,
and to make ends meet
we use our hands and our voices.
Still, it seems the only way to survive
is by giving the world a life.
Extra breaths and another mouth to feed,
the result of sloth’s slovenly greed.
A list of talents
comprised as an ego
splattered on paper and ready to throw
at anyone willing to give you a shot
is apparently an effort to live.
Living and existing are not the same.
The rules are different;
it’s a whole other game.
You can talk and wail
as much as you like,
but it won’t have been worth it
and death won’t mean a thing.
No matter how loud you sing,
it’s the tale you tell that matters.
Will you tell your boys
that fighting is wrong?
Will you tell your girls
they’re beautiful without make-up?
Will you tell your mother
and your father
and their mother and father
that it was a pleasure to have had the same blood?
That your memories are good,
not tainted with bitterness and wrong?
The price of the singing
is only in the song.

†

When trust was placed before my eyes
I recoiled in horror, filled with surprise;
I wondered just how I could throw away
the love for myself that I’d nurtured each day.
To let you all in
and breathe you all out
without the temptation to run
and scream and shout.
I grew alongside my own demise,
better and bitter
and with wiser eyes.
The night’s became longer
and the days became a threat;
I knew what made me stronger
was something I couldn’t get.
The mystery had me
by the hands and the feet,
life itself picked me up and
tossed me about the street.
The helping hand was one
that I was sure I recognised;
my one, my only,
that wiped tears from my eyes.
People, they ran through me
stopping only to add salt
to the wounds in me that festered
through my own and other’s faults.
Time, my greatest challenge,
to live beside the clock,
as it ticked and tocked my life away
and the cradle gently rocked.
I walked down streets that I knew
would never let me return,
for I understood that to erase the past
everything must burn.

†

People look beneath their windows,
watching the world turn
and the children fight
against the privilege to learn.
Our God, our science
they seem to become one;
merging to make a superior force
that makes man seem weak.
The outlook is bleak.
I wonder,
can we get past this dangerous time
and march in a straight line
to a brighter, better place?
I don’t care much for peace,
I don’t care at all for lust;
but the threat of the war of man
will destroy what is left of trust.
Turn to your companion,
the friend at your close side.
If they should dare to compare to you
their love will be denied.
The glory of a win
is nothing but cheap sin
if the warriors drowned in their egos.
Search around the World Wide Web
in the hope of finding something
that will make your existence mean more.
Perhaps your image means the same
for someone playing a similar game.
Burn your money,
end the fight;
call off the dogs
and say goodnight.