I'm sorry this world became so unsafe,
that you are now in an indefinite sleep,
that by evil you were strafed,
that your family and friends will weep and weep.

You always put a smile on your family's face,
no matter how sad each one of them was,
You are someone they can never replace,
the laughter lines on their faces? You were the cause.

The day that you were shot and slipped away,
Your mum broke down completely and was in absolute shock.
Your parents wept and thought of you every minute of the day,
you didn't deserve this end - they wish they could turn back the clock.

You should have been getting married,
but now you are in Heaven above.
Now in a casket you shall be carried
and they will cry for you again and release a dove.

I promise now your spirit is free,
and I promise that you won't really be gone
as you will live on inside of your family,
and for your justice they will keep fighting on.

As I was saying . . . (No, thank you; I never take cream with my tea;
Cows weren't allowed in the trenches -- got out of the habit, y'see.)
As I was saying, our Colonel leaped up like a youngster of ten:
"Come on, lads!" he shouts, "and we'll show 'em," and he sprang to the head of the men.
Then some bally thing seemed to trip him, and he fell on his face with a slam. . . .
Oh, he died like a true British soldier, and the last word he uttered was "****!"
And hang it! I loved the old fellow, and something just burst in my brain,
And I cared no more for the bullets than I would for a shower of rain.
'Twas an awf'ly funny sensation (I say, this is jolly nice tea);
I felt as if something had broken; by gad! I was suddenly free.
Free for a glorified moment, beyond regulations and laws,
Free just to wallow in slaughter, as the chap of the Stone Age was.

So on I went joyously nursing a Berserker rage of my own,
And though all my chaps were behind me, feeling most frightf'ly alone;
With the bullets and shells ding-donging, and the "krock" and the swish of the shrap;
And I found myself humming "Ben Bolt" . . . (Will you pass me the sugar, old chap?
Two lumps, please). . . . What was I saying? Oh yes, the jolly old dash;
We simply ripped through the barrage, and on with a roar and a crash.
My fellows -- Old Nick couldn't stop 'em. On, on they went with a yell,
Till they tripped on the Boches' sand-bags, -- nothing much left to tell:
A trench so tattered and battered that even a rat couldn't live;
Some corpses tangled and mangled, wire you could pass through a sieve.

The jolly old guns had bilked us, cheated us out of our show,
And my fellows were simply yearning for a red mix-up with the foe.
So I shouted to them to follow, and on we went roaring again,
Battle-tuned and exultant, on in the leaden rain.
Then all at once a machine gun barks from a bit of a bank,
And our Major roars in a fury: "We've got to take it on flank."
He was running like fire to lead us, when down like a stone he comes,
As full of "typewriter" bullets as a pudding is full of plums.
So I took his job and we got 'em. . . . By gad! we got 'em like rats;
Down in a deep shell-crater we fought like Kilkenny cats.
'Twas pleasant just for a moment to be sheltered and out of range,
With someone you saw to go for -- it made an agreeable change.

And the Boches that missed my bullets, my chaps gave a bayonet jolt,
And all the time, I remember, I whistled and hummed "Ben Bolt".
Well, that little job was over, so hell for leather we ran,
On to the second line trenches, -- that's where the fun began.
For though we had strafed 'em like fury, there still were some Boches about,
And my fellows, teeth set and eyes glaring, like terriers routed 'em out.
Then I stumbled on one of their dug-outs, and I shouted: "Is anyone there?"
And a voice, "Yes, one; but I'm wounded," came faint up the narrow stair;
And my man was descending before me, when sudden a cry! a shot!
(I say, this cake is delicious. You make it yourself, do you not?)
My man? Oh, they killed the poor devil; for if there was one there was ten;
So after I'd bombed 'em sufficient I went down at the head of my men,
And four tried to sneak from a bunk-hole, but we cornered the rotters all right;
I'd rather not go into details, 'twas messy that bit of the fight.

But all of it's beastly messy; let's talk of pleasanter things:
The skirts that the girls are wearing, ridiculous fluffy things,
So short that they show. . . . Oh, hang it! Well, if I must, I must.
We cleaned out the second trench line, bomb and bayonet ******;
And on we went to the third one, quite calloused to crumping by now;
And some of our fellows who'd passed us were making a deuce of a row;
And my chaps -- well, I just couldn't hold 'em; (It's strange how it is with gore;
In some ways it's just like whiskey: if you taste it you must have more.)
Their eyes were like beacons of battle; by gad, sir! they COULDN'T be calmed,
So I headed 'em bang for the bomb-belt, racing like billy-be-******.
Oh, it didn't take long to arrive there, those who arrived at all;
The machine guns were certainly chronic, the shindy enough to appal.
Oh yes, I omitted to tell you, I'd wounds on the chest and the head,
And my shirt was torn to a gun-rag, and my face blood-gummy and red.

I'm thinking I looked like a madman; I fancy I felt one too,
Half naked and swinging a rifle. . . . God! what a glorious "do".
As I sit here in old Piccadilly, sipping my afternoon tea,
I see a blind, bullet-chipped devil, and it's hard to believe that it's me;
I see a wild, war-damaged demon, smashing out left and right,
And humming "Ben Bolt" rather loudly, and hugely enjoying the fight.
And as for my men, may God bless 'em! I've loved 'em ever since then:
They fought like the shining angels; they're the pick o' the land, my men.
And the trench was a reeking shambles, not a Boche to be seen alive --
So I thought; but on rounding a traverse I came on a covey of five;
And four of 'em threw up their flippers, but the fifth chap, a sergeant, was game,
And though I'd a bomb and revolver he came at me just the same.
A sporty thing that, I tell you; I just couldn't blow him to hell,
So I swung to the point of his jaw-bone, and down like a ninepin he fell.
And then when I'd brought him to reason, he wasn't half bad, that ***;
He bandaged my head and my short-rib as well as the Doc could have done.
So back I went with my Boches, as gay as a two-year-old colt,
And it suddenly struck me as rummy, I still was a-humming "Ben Bolt".
And now, by Jove! how I've bored you. You've just let me babble away;
Let's talk of the things that matter -- your car or the newest play. . . .

Long time ago, I thought about staying in
An era lost,
Dead and gone,
Despite all the saving and baptisms.

They offered me the chance to lead them, to teach them,
to… to be king.
But my place was here.
So I drank some juice,
Said some words and here I am.

Didn’t seem like it was over though.
I was hitchhiking down a long and lonesome road.
Suddenly,
The skies filled with brimstone and irony,
The ground grew silent and still,
Clocks ticking wound satirically,
The sea drained into nothingness
like some gaping mouth was drinking it,
Dead gods awoke,
and there shined a shiny demon,
In the middle of the road.

He said to me,
“Welcome Moon-and-Star,
Come to me through fire and war.
Come, Legion,
Come and look upon the heart.
Lay down your weapons
And pick up your pen,
It is not too late for my mercy.

Now write the best poem in the world,
or I'll swallow your soul...”

Well, my many faces,
We looked at each other,
And we all said,

Okay.

And we wrote the first thing that came to our heads,
Just so happened to be
The best poem in the world,
It was the best poem in the world.

It went a little like this:

In the beginning, there was one source of light.
It would die and come back every night,
As a woman showing off her thighs
Just a little bit at a time.

In the beginning,
everyone bowed their heads towards the light.
They would dance and eat their friends alive.
We were not happy then,
these were simpler times.

Now we are played,
we’re the moth we’re the flame.
We were aware of the danger,
we could not look away;
my eyes are open.

I forget though
that people are not good to each other,
One on one.
Marx be ******,
The sin is not the totality of certain systems.
Theology be ******,
The sin is not the killing of a god.
People are just not good to each other.

We are afraid
and
We think that hatred means strength.

And so what we need is less brilliance,
what we need is less instruction,
what we need are less poets,
what we need is more beer,
a typist,
more finches.

And now I’m hoping for a poem
That will come to me when I’m asleep.
Because I can’t lie
And so I can’t write.

Our eyes pierce you, demon,
And it occurred to me that we have spent
our whole life
Starting over.

Caught pining for the things that we could’ve been:
We could have been gold diggers
we could have been gunslingers
we could have been a little bigger
we could have been our own ringers
we could have been good writers
we could have been good writers
we could have been good writers

But what we are,
is the silence.
Share with me all your pain.

I won't
Share your love.
I need all your love
Or it’s all for not.

Look what I have found, look what I have found!

Look what I have found, look what I have found!
An artificial light, we come and gather around.
This is why we have lovers and why we have fighters.

This is why the arms race and particle colliders.
Mine is a humble flame, just a little white lighter
And it belongs to me.

And yet
There is a loneliness in this world so great
That you can see it in the slow movements
Of the hands of a clock.
There are people so tired,
So strafed,
So mutilated by love or
No love,
That buying a bargain can of tuna
In a supermarket
Is their greatest victory.

So save me, I can't be saved,
I won't be saved.
I'm a citizen's son,
I don't need no soul.
All the soldiers say,
"It'll be alright,
We may make it through the war
If we make it through the night."
All the people, they say,
"What a lovely day, yeah, we won the war.
May have lost a million men, but we've got a million more."
All the people, they think
That no recall or intervention can work in this place,
That There is no escape.

Look into my eyes and it's easy to see
one and one makes two, two and one makes three,
it was destiny.
Once every hundred thousand years or so
when the sun doth shine
and the moon doth glow and the grass doth grow.

We dance in the thunder
Of collapsing walls and twisting cages.
The great black bellowing,
“I'm a god.
How can you **** a god?
What a grand and intoxicating innocence.
I'm a god.
How can you **** a god?
Shame on you, sweet Legion.”

We screech into the obsidian sheets
that blanket the way-out,
“When the giants of heaven forsake the earth
I shall destroy you for all that you’re worth.
With the bolt of Zeus and our golden throats
I will destroy you and send you afloat.
Whether you pillage the earth or sea
I will destroy you this I guarantee!”

Needless to say,
The beast was stunned.
Whip-crack went his whippy tail,
And the beast was done.
He asked us,
Be you angels?
And we said nay,

We are but men,

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal voice went snicker-snack!
we left Hymn dead, and with His read-head
we went hiking on ahead.

And the peculiar thing is this, my friends:
The poem we wrote on that fateful night,
It didn't actually read anything like this poem!

And the past followed me anyway.
so sure, I could’ve stayed there,
Could’ve been king.
But in my own way,
I am king.

Hot August winds
Blows across dried yellow grass.
The shimmer of heat.
Rippling off the blacktop.
At a roadside Motel.On the
South Dakota Landscape.

I see the arrival of
An Amish family all,
Dressed in Black.
Arrive dragging their
Simple bags into the room
As the door closes.

I head inside to escape the heat
The smell of sulfur.
Rises from the water faucet.
Mixed with the smell of
Bacon and Eggs frying
In an electric skillet.

I head out under the overhang.
To escape the heat and my parents.
Down the way, a boy in Black Hat
Black shirt open,
White Tee showing.

He walks over to meet me.
I show him toys I brought,
Bored in the blasting heat.
We hop across the hot blacktop.
Barefoot trying not to get burned.

Off to the park, We find
The hollowed out carcass.
Of an F-16 Fighter Jet,
We bonded as pilot and copilot
Jetting across the Badlands.

We strafed and bombed.
Enemy installations.
Cutting off troop Supplies.
We blasted the afterburners.
Breaking the sound barrier.
On a hot August afternoon.

When you sweep a village
for the first time
it's rather creepy.
Actually, it's pretty ******* scary,
your ******* gets tight
& it feels like your esophagus
is twisted up in your throat.
People seem to go about their business
as if nothing's wrong.
But there isn't anything right about it.
You can tell it by their eyes,
those vacant hollow eyes,
showing a blend of fear & hatred.
Needles burn through
your ACU's,
spelling "*******'s"
all over your sweaty skin.
Jesus, we carried enough firepower
to level the place
three times over,
**** every living thing,
including the pets & livestock.
We had helicopters and spooky
and artillery at our fingertips, too.
I tried to imagine the same ****
happening in my own city back home.
& it's definitely not
a comforting thought
to think about soldiers
disrupting your lifestyle.
I think I'd be ****** if a cobra
strafed my neighbor's house
or a 1-oh-5 leveled my local 7-11.
Deep thoughts like that
made me
miss my humble abode
even more.
But Christ,
this was war
& war is hell
& we were ****** for it.

All of these human can be nothing but be basic and face it
It's tracing the lines of the facade that's been spliced hundreds of strides and on mauve colors lines placed then
Retraced to the grid full of masterfully hid fingers stagnant and bent tripping placid and flaccid like ***** that are emaciated and crypt ****** and splattered like pavement placed upon pickled waves strafed across walled like cinder blocks half way through baking
Entombed youth encased in the catwalk of toxins
Ensuing and spewing no lines not concrete times and dimed up in baggy a sporadically creased into godsends.
There is no god in the streets he's illegal and should have bend the taxes been spread towards all the youth it's intwined threads. The volumous illusion of writing. Put into cursive this is not my writing ******* stop hacking my account you credophile.
The only way to live is the high life.
It is thing overcoming the tops of woven rugs covered so that beneath there's a heap of root vegetation growth so deep seeded it grows in the sand it is mired in. Below the seep of the sin it's been trampled in. These horses don't have legs. Just *****. To just braid yourself in them.

.
Of the unaware dreamers,
Hearts are held breathless
In mid air, shunted in light
Below lips that lie a bed,
Hairs stand on ends break
Drowning with eyes shut,
The flesh that burns cold
Knows only heats of mind
And dreams smothering,
Like so few words alive.

In the love room blankets
Reveal dark in coverings,
The fingers tally bone dry,
Touch, chafed and strafed
Like nails sanded and cut,
Two hearts so long gone,
Untethered, playing foul,
Both agreeing in isolation
That death has two smiles
Frowned, in the love room.

Picture perfect like a ballerina waving her arms;
deep gorges and rolling valleys, a morning smile,
but the armies of pain tried to make her forget

She lay awake watching for birds too blind to fly

She wanted to wear her slippers
But the hot embers of war remained
She wanted to twirl on extended toes
But the holes she penetrated had no end

He had thought himself as a fallen prince but she
could not accept cruelty as fateful romance; only
furtive, plaintive, pointed glances remained;
wanting to shatter glass without breaking form
over every new set of lustful eyes

She knew he had never kissed a storm

A black swan; she hated that she had no concern
or seriousness until after it happened and yet he
was also a black swan swimming eagerly towards
her sweet lips

She kissed him as if it was a mistake

He was consumed with fantasy; another knight
pursuing his prey; she knew he was already in love;
it was too easy to hurt a man; every naïve inference
he followed was in reality her rigid body saying no

Ste remembered who slayed her pride setting
in motion the earth’s plates beneath the ocean
that shattered salty skies with its ruthless
obsessive deluge crushing the future

Nothing would ever be perfect again; or was
it that she realized it never was; she knew
normalcy could never reveal her criminal side
or what she would do with a man who knew
how to touch her

She wanted to be wildly melodramatic, but
the elevator would not descend for those
who could not control themselves; the
reflection in her wine glass reminded her
how quickly it would sink into the ******
mess she had become but at least it would
know why being strafed, shot and left for
dead had become so important to her

All this and his lips were still moving, prying
open her mouth so he could pleasure himself;
such a man was not what she wanted but
it was time to let him be a man and she was
willing to donate herself to the cause; if only
he knew how to do it

A suggestion of blue within blackness ,
of faith tendered by 'anguish'
Daffodils disguised in tall grass ,
rows of black and gray 'coldstone' strafed in unchecked greenery
Burgeoning , stalwart , once heroic entities
receiving the tempered breath of nightfall -
repetitively and forever
Cut granite profiles tinged in
sunlight and wrought iron , guarded
by water oak and magnolia sentries*...

Would you hold that thorny rose
that bites so deep into your vein
could the pain that you feel within
truly ever give tarnished blames

You danced in the shadows to his delight
you were his ardour, his kingdoms respite
before the claws of darker then man
strafed this wicked and unholy land

Where is the money in Heaven
where is the money
is it with your hat and coat
the same as you left it before

It could be best if I moved
did not stand my ground Sir
but I have no care anymore
all I have is foolish pride

My love is so Tragically yours
the more you fight me, I do more
to make you see, that I Love thee
and will love you forever more


By Christos Andreas Kourtis aka NeonSolaris

In fear of saboteurs, we parked planes wing to wing
which made them easy targets from the air.
While relations were uneasy with Imperial Japan
up to this point war had not been declared.
Peace ended when we heard the drone of their incoming planes
and saw a row of Hawks go up in flames.
Wheeler field was target rich and their pilots were well trained,
They bombed and strafed, destroying all they found.

In the lull between the waves of the onslaught of their planes,
We got a dozen war hawks off the ground.
We twelve angry would be heroes
had little chance against their Zeros
but we struck a blow and shot some bombers down.

Ford Island was half hidden by the smoke and flames that rose
from the stricken battle-wagons on the row.
It was dangerous to remain flying any sort of plane
as the sailors there would shoot at friend or foe.


The attacking fleet made sail and returned back to Japan.
They had hurt us but they left their job half done.
Our fuel farms were still here and facilities for repair;
We’d raise our ships to fight the rising Sun.

i stood in the fortress of your love
to guide and protect you
from being blue,
to keep you safe
from being strafed
by all the lines you have encountered
and at the end of the war
you stood far
with another girl
and never looked back
at the girl who wore black
who protected
and collected
all of your broken parts
and kept it inside her heart.

The roar of the **** automatic guns

That threw their exploding flak shells

Mixed with the shout of our engines

And bone dry rattle of our machine guns

Gave the French battle scene life

As we strafed and bombed our enemy

To give our troops more time

Our biplanes were made to fight the last war

Not a Blitzkreig but a target was a target

We went after the ******* all the way

Our six Hawker Hector biplanes still had teeth

Four yellow painted 125 pound bombs

And two small machine guns aimed by both crew

City of Manchester Squadron grabbing their chance

Aircrew of the Royal Air Force serving King and Country

In the darkest hour as the **** war machine came

Seemingly unstoppable and utterly invinsible

Except when the RAF biplanes attacked...

A low-flying squadron of Mourning Doves
Swooped over the neighbor’s ten-foot wall
And strafed me with their grace and beauty
                                            ljm

The Enigma


Some children rescued from the hell in Syria
came to the west where the got a good education,
which made them realize their rescuers were
also, the enemy who had bombed and strafed
killing their relatives.
The rediscovered they were Arabs and the culture
of the west was contrary to the Koran, so they
thought of bringing the war to us with a vengeance.
What we have done to the Arab people, even giving
them the bleeding wound called Israel is not and can
not be forgotten; the decision made by the few to
wedge war in the Middle East is a price the man and
the woman in the street, are paying.

Manners over matters at hand, I do not stand, this is where I live, but it's not my land, you can live for anything and be killed for nothing, bring to bear a harsher march through marshes, a larger charge of volition, voices in unison with the same demand

the pandemic, it's systemic, of a cyclic, sick bicycle kick system, capitalist democracy, consumerism, candidacy cherry picked, politicians are an environmental hazard, one big oil slick, I feel the stress and anxiety, depressed and regressed as much into my shell as I can be, I don't look for encouragement from my friends or family, I'm okay, I'll keep my head down if no one has to keep their eye on me, if everything looks fine, nothing's wrong, see?

But I'm losing sleep, McClain, yours was an exuberant spirit, it was light, your smile was joy I could touch from a still image, innocence like that, I'm nowhere near it, your laughter is infectious and I'll never hear it, but your sobs, your final moments, burn like a poisonous fire inside, you were so full of life and you died in fear, it's *******, I quit, I'd never **** an American out of national pride, to be that lost as a cause my soul would abandon me because I couldn't even find my way back with a spiritual guide, I'd rather the right to remain silent be outright denied, so all the sealed lips are finally pried, there's no answers to anything without discourse and discussion, a dialogue from either side, when the people have exhausted all arguments, fight until the last drop of blood is dried, we celebrated independence, and Lady Liberty sighed, we lied, we're not United States, we are divided gates, I live in the suburbs, I know my neighbors are doing great, it makes my teeth grate, there is prolific hate, frustration enough to drive a man irate, it's like warmongers, embittered diminished returns, Iran, well I ran your license plate, found out where you ate, ready to catch you up and show you the drill, fearmongers, making ignorance stronger, wound up and ready to ****, tourists in your own home, killers homegrown on a bank loan, I'd rather dive off a bridge than enlist where I live, I'm in the middle of fair wars, I'm no fan, I'm no Afghani-Stan, they say power is measured in a nation's fleet of aircraft carriers, there's nothing scarier, than to have known, you could line em all up to hear the bray of ***** from the bay of pigs, a brigade of world leaders strafed by migs would get smoked like cigs, and they'd come for your kids in a draft before they'd come after me, offering up guns, they want your rising sons

I felt heartbreak for a young man I never even heard of before, cops mocked his death at his own memorial, I couldn't shake his beaming face and they pushed him through death's door, I'm unemployed, and I'm so ******* annoyed, by utilitarian standards he had every right over me to live, he was a massage therapist with a longer life to give, I'll never be half as loveable or kind at a glance as he is even now, if I could give you a second chance, you'd only have to tell me how... it's like they're big game hunters and big name hunters, with no shame under, remorse is important when you carry a weapon, if you use force you need to feel the brunt of that, it's no small indiscretion, being law is supposed to be tense, if you slip up on the job, people can die, and that guilt never relents, so where's the missing elements? There's ineptitude and attitude, shrewd and crude police, you cannot flash enlightenment, but the blues always come with some jazz and a sense of entitlement, it's a wonder where the good samaritan went, so, we live in this ongoing American Experiment, lab rats one and all, who knows what the hypothesis meant, equality was never sent, we can die for it and still be killed for nothing by the government, it's an abomination, the administration of conspiracies that bring stable geniuses to their knees, ******* generations and spread disease, no love for your fellow brothers and sisters, your voice they resent, ever since the end of the Obama-nation, we're dreaming of living within a wall, away from you all, with economic power and arms to stand tall, while from the inside out we fall, it's easy to pin every problem on Trump, he's the scapegoat to end all scapegoats, he excels at being the public punching bag president, but there's hail to the chief and there's head to the snake, it's a cancer, we're so strong, we held ourselves up for so long, trying to remain prominent, it's been imminent, if there's a countdown I'm giving it, under suffering, many people split, with no peace, no justice, only the declaration of a conflict unrelinquinshed, under the rule of total *******.