We might
pretend to understand, but
we don't.
Perhaps it only
feels finite.
Perhaps we only mourn so well
because we look
so good in black.
Some days, that
horizon looks closer
than others, but
it's hard to say
what, if anything, that means.
Seven months could
be a whole lifetime.
You can turn
eighty years into
a false start or
an apology.

Still… it's not enough.
Nonetheless... that makes no difference.

Time and space and matter
continue to exist,
and the same senseless
tragedies repeat.
A pain that once
seemed strange
becomes cyclical and
intimately familiar.
These brutalising patterns.
These seasons of loss.
Winter in July.
Graves that can never be
deep enough.
I know you.
We've done this before.
This feeling is closer and
more known to me
than the calluses
on my palms
that have almost healed
somehow.
Fading stigmata.
Apostle of a
small slain god.

I'm not making sense, and I know
I'm not making sense,
but then nothing does.

Warrior,
Wayward passage through mountains and creek
Sword bearing, brutalising
A bastion of medieval belief
Succulence of blood, yet a sour note
The progression of sapiens yet to pronounce
So how can this story unfold?
If we can't bear to turn the other cheek

Warrior,
Culture displaced by rage and fury
Interaction bequeathed to those who accept
A tantalising prospect, fading into black
An indent on iron and steel
Becoming myth and drowning in the lake.
Must we look no further than the garden?
The fields of a distant land, forgotten
And incensed at no hand to shake

Warrior,
We will not submit to isolation and ambiguity
But catch the flowers we've longed to chase
And meet the farmhand, an enigma no more
Determined to melt the hilt of metal
And join the wandering eye of family.

.           S         I           N


       Spain Ireland Norway

        you have committed

       a grievous sin, worse

       than the Inquisition or

      Holocaust, and Ireland!

      you should have known

     better after your years of

   torment and subjugation by

   English Scottish and Welsh

       Britishly brutalising you.

     Palestinian recognition is

     Anti-Semitism most high,

  it was hate speech amplified.

  This is no way to treat God’s

chosen people, we are victims,

  of Allah and all Arabs are evil.