“I don’t want to be a hero.”
said a short Jewish comedian
who never commanded a regiment
or entertained heads of state.
But when you said that victory
is lives saved, we knew that you are one.
When you said “we will win”
we knew.
Our countries have
handshaking, photo posing,
equivocating, suit-wearing,
empty words repeating,
backslapping, deal-making
cowards who never faced down
an enemy who rapes mothers
in front of their children
and tosses corpses into streets
and leaves dead young men
on the battlefield so that
their mothers will never
know the truth.
Perseus didn’t negotiate with Medusa.
Nor David with Goliath.
Nor Churchill with ******.
An Enemy must be defeated.
We need more heroes.

They were human once, it is said.
Now they torture the living
And abandon their dead.
Like their predecessors
Of the same name,
Destruction is their pleasure
And killing their game.

Their Dark Lord sits upon his throne
In Sochi, where his mind dwells alone.
To unite all, under his dark reign,
As subjects, or slaves—to Him, all the same.
No longer in Thangorodrim does He dwell.
He rules now from Moscow, and seeks
an Empire of Hell.

Hell is created
By the ORCS whom he orders.
Their blood lust to be sated
Far beyond  Russia’s borders.
Destruction they rain from the skies above
On people who must flee
From all that they love.

They were human once,
And perhaps even Him.
Now they are beyond
The world’s Creation
And we call on Varda
To vanquish him.

I’m not a biologist,  but I know what a woman is.
I’m not a veterinarian, but I can recognize a cat.
I’m not a botanist, but I know what a flower is.
We’re told a lot of *******;  we can all see that.
I don’t need a weatherman
To know which way the wind’s blowing.
There’s a chill wind blowing, it’s blowing all around.
We’ve got groupthink showing,
Where we never thought it would,
We’ve got people saying silent, afraid to make a sound.
If you know you’re right,
Doesn’t matter what they say.
It’s like Kipling said, he knew what makes a MAN,
And I know what makes a WOMAN, and I’m not afraid to take a stand.

The Ogre does what ogres can,
Deeds quite impossible for Man,
But one prize is beyond his reach,
The Ogre cannot master Speech:
About a subjugated plain,
Among its desperate and slain,
The Ogre stalks with hands on hips,
While drivel gushes from his lips.

everything i stand for is alien here
everything i despise is rife
death is glorified at every corner
and trampled upon is life

you're not supposed to speak
but you're required to believe
kindness is called weak
and you're not allowed to grieve

war is peace, they say
ignorance is strength
now i find myself cast away
where lies are being fed at length

i gaze, unblinking, into the abyss
it gazes back, calling my name
i've always felt there's something amiss
with this wicked, cruel game

the game i chose not to play
the game that has no rules
the game you can't expect to win
the game so loved by fools

My Facebook photos of birds and trees,
of pretty flowers and woodland scenes,
garner likes from the people I know.
But when I post photos of slugs and bats,
of bees and insects I found on the paths,
my Facebook friends are nowhere to be found.
I don’t have any cuddly cats to show,
or babies, or a girl with her hair in a bow.
But I love nature in all of its forms.
The slug inches across the ground,
the bat flits in the twilight without a sound,
both of them pollinate beautiful plants.
Why don’t my friends see Nature’s beauty abound
in every creature, above and on ground,
when if any of them should disappear,
we’ll know that the end of our time is near.