A little bird has flown the nest
                     to seek a world of wonder
and spreads her wings 'neath skies possessed      
                     by lightning bolts and thunder.

She flees approaching hurricanes
                     her feathers, white, aflutter,
and travels over vast terrains
                     of broken stones and clutter.

And though she swoops to skirt the curse
                     her hopes are torn asunder,
for on the ground’s a universe
                     of raging death and plunder.

The sands below have hid all trace
                     of olive trees and clover
where splintered bones now span a space
                     which rolling dunes pass over.

In search of silent secrets stored
                     by enemies uncertain
the loons will surf with waterboard,
                     well masked behind a curtain.

Beneath the bats that flee in fright
                     from hell that’s in the making
(so hot, the corpse of night ignites),
                     the thread of life is breaking.

A sudden burst and numbing noise
                     (replacing sounds of laughter)
lead army boots o’er children’s toys
                     debouching towards disaster.

Barrages break and rivers bleed
                     in everywhere down under
but nonetheless there’s flesh for feed
                     wherever buzzards blunder.

The aged, youth and embryos,
                     through wanton death, are waning -
the vultures, hawks and ebon crows,
                     well fed, are not complaining.

As carnage spreads (like ancient plagues),
                     a virus cruel and schlepping,
the lanes are lined with shattered legs
                     where e’er the goose was stepping.

A ducky quacks in hot pursuit
                     while seeking help and shelter,
but wizened owls give not a hoot
                     in worlds so helter-skelter
                    
The consequence of pillages,
                     where love of man surceases,
are craters, onetime villages
                     reduced to tiny pieces.

The gardens, white, where lilies bloomed,
                     now fallow fields of ashes,
are catacombs of cities doomed
                     'neath sonic booms and flashes.

Survivors traipsing place to place
                     like nomads forced to wander,
are searching for a piece of peace
                     within the distant yonder.

A savage world in smithereens
                     with olive branches burning -
disgruntled doves endure these scenes
                     through endless years of yearning.

The Gods of birds are of no use,
                     inept like Those of others -
so foes attack, with blessed excuse
{both sides claim right inside the night!}
                     while earth, in embers, smothers.

                     Epitaph

The cuckoos covet kingdom come  
                     while roosting on a rafter -
there’s food for all, though only chum,
                     in birdy-land hereafter.

Pursuing springtime walking sprees
beside our dog, beneath the trees,
I oft detected some unease
amongst the birds and buzzing bees
as echoed by flat monodies
of clicking, clacking, knocking knees
(forsooth, reversed parentheses)
resounding pained discordant keys,
confusing triplets’ twos and threes
as if the tunes were meant to tease
with awkward stilted harmonies.

I asked a doc with med degrees
if he could, somehow, kindly, please,
suggest intensive therapies
that maybe might perhaps just ease
strange syncopations such as these
(you know, those eerie  melodies
that echo from my noisy knees)
before my family finally flees.

At last my doctor said “oh geez,
this is the worst of maladies,
so I’ll replace those  knobby knees
(they look like half moons made of cheese)
with stainless steel or manganese
or other metals such as these
as used in all such surgeries.
I’m sure the outcome won’t displease
(you’ll stand on legs, isosceles)
although there are no guarantees”.

Now that I’m fixed, I stretch and squeeze
with exercise my coach decrees
to aid me flex my new born knees;
and should I suffer agonies
he soothes the strains with frozen peas
or cubes of ice that make me freeze
and says “I hope my expertise
has helped to heal your injuries
and if you must, feel free to sneeze”.

With chiseled legs on racing skis,
I now can sail as does a breeze
o’er  nearby alpine apogees
(and view those sites that no one sees,
alive in eagles reveries)
and when in Vail, win jamborees
upon my new non-knocking knees.

I go to church each Sunday,
God warns ‘there’s much to fear,
the world is decomposing,
the final end is near’.

I go to church each Sunday
and taste the wine and bread,
though elsewhere on our globus
raw hunger reigns instead.

I go to church each Sunday,
hear preachers’ words rebuff
repentant pauper’s pleading
‘enough is not enough’.

I go to church each Sunday,
watch candles burning bright
although they don’t enlighten      
the demons of the night.

I go to church each Sunday
to wash away my sin,
while prophets make their profits
with wars that do us in.

I go to church each Sunday,
think thoughts incessantly
of all our planet’s peoples
denied equality.

I go to church each Sunday,  
sit peacefully in the nave
while folks afar seek, grieving,
throughout a boundless grave.

I go to church each Sunday
to view iconic forms
alive in lancet windows
that hide unholy storms.

I go to church each Sunday,
discharge the weekly tithe,
while others pay the piper
when Reaper whets his scythe.

I go to church each Sunday
regard the holy bell,
reflecting on the wastelands
where day and night they knell.

I go to church each Sunday,
hear persons of the cloth
disguise the hell hereafter
with wartime victory froth.

I go to church each Sunday,
half perched upon a pew;
with everything so hopeless,
what else can one but do?

I go to church each Sunday,
and gaze upon the steeple,
majestic as the rockets
that plunge on placid people.

I go to church each Sunday
to hear the choir’s song
keep time with banshees shrieking
within a world gone wrong.

I go to church each Sunday
(above, doves fly in flocks),
while far flung realms are flattened
beneath the wings of hawks.

I go to church each Sunday
and pray so oft for peace,
but still the death continues,
it never seems to cease.

I go to church each Sunday
to sing sad psalms of praise,
while distant drones are humming
o’er bodies burnt, ablaze.

I go to church each Sunday,
a quest to save my soul
’gainst warfare’s pride and plunder -
prayer never plays a role.

I go to church each Sunday
my errors to confess,
while countries keep on killing
and suffer no redress.

I go to church each Sunday
the future for to see -
a man-made Armageddon
that ends humanity.

The world today is split in two
… or three... or four... or maybe more,
but nonetheless, one must confess,
all wage their wars as heretofore.

While blunderbusses prey for us
within our world where gods deceive,
atomic war, white phosphorus
and na-palm gel that burns, bereave.

Yes, Tweedledumb oft beats the drum
and pokes the pig and baits the boar
while tongues are wrung as songs are sung
distorting hymns of ‘Nevermore’.

And all the while the hordes defile
forgotten ghosts who haunt the coasts
awash in tears of crocodiles
who’ve lost the least but rue the most.

And Tweedledumber, somewhat glummer,
fills the sheath with claws and teeth
to arm the hacks and maniacs
who’ll dance the dance that death bequeaths.

Though blood runs red amongst the dead,
along the track the holes are black
and filled with human flesh in shreds -
for wily worms, a midnight snack.

In distant days, hell’s breeze ablaze,
death’s final wreath will sink beneath
ould yahoo’s wicked words that raise
the underworld from underneath.

But Hannibal, implacable,
is something weird and far more feared
by captured pawns within the squall
of sorry souls who’ve disappeared.

The devil deals the dead man’s hand
to Tweedledumber, Tweedledumb
who gamble in the promised land,
fill kingdom come with martyrdom.

Both Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber
slaying for more living space
have churned the chum throughout the summer -
carnage in a crowded place.

They worship warships, tanks galore,
cool macho stuff that’s sent to sn-uff –
along the shore the cannons roar,
some loud enough to call God’s bluff.

While passing over fields of clover,
every breath still smells of death
that’s dropped by drones and other rovers
shaming freedom’s shibboleth.

When phones explode and lawns are mowed
while Tweedledumb, the reaper, strums,
royal boats on River Styx are rowed
by moneyed men with calloused thumbs.

When Tweedledumb can’t overcome
the famished flocks midst sands and rocks,
or clear the slum to rid the sc-um
he’ll talk the talk to hard-nosed hawks.

And they in turn, with naught to learn,
will flap their wings and pull the strings
of those who yearn the quick return
of sandbox kings that victory brings.

Yes Tweedledumber makes him happy
sending BB guns and bombs,
maintaining armies tough and scrappy
killing kids, their dads and moms.

Because the Tweedles have no qualms
effacing foes’ knees, heads and toes,
the pious pray and sing sad psalms
the while that thousands die in throes.

Have you ever been drunk,
and submersed in a funk,
as if trapped in a trunk
but then asked to write junk
in a poem which stunk
though your mind has been shrunk
by a psychotic monk
who’s been beaten punch-drunk
and if not a slam dunk
as a poet you’ll flunk?

The Holy Land neath hammer blows -
           is this what Jesus prophesied:
when sad-sack’s hanged like mistletoes
           the sightless see a suicide;
when thousands fall like dominoes
           the blind deny it’s homicide;
when women fry in thermal throes
           the gents reject it’s femicide
when rockets slaughter embryos
           the fools forget it’s feticide
when children die and decompose
           the dullards doubt infanticide;
when bodies burn with afterglows
           no one concedes it’s genocide.
Whichever way the west wind blows
           leaves morals dangling, crucified…

The 6th and 9th have come and gone though none have taken note
that faraway, on those two days, an instant blazing blast
had vaporized morality. A bygone anecdote?
It seems such tales are best forgot and buried in the past.

But nonetheless, one must confess, the odds are highest now
that might and means have globalized the final battle field,
such that the victors also lose and perish anyhow.
The rulers in their zeal decide these facts be best concealed.

The warriors bit by bit rearm, their foes to nullify,
with strategies for victories where winners will prevail,
rejecting thoughts of compromise (though nukes are standing by!).
Yet still its grimly obvious that all will finally fail.

Beware you wide-eyed simpletons that follow, with the herd,
the drumbeat of the profiteers that draws us down this path
with prophesies of glory days and other things absurd.
Instead the skies above will burn, the only aftermath.