Listening to the thin squeak
of my radio turned low
playing non-stop jazz
all day and night, but not
to disturb the neighbours …
I fill my dark with
other people’s dreams.
I read, too – stories that all
end happily, they are all alike.
Afterwards, I forget them.
The world is burning, but
in a day or two the fires will be out.
They’re being water-bombed right now.
The houses and paddocks
and the poor, trapped stock
will all be destroyed. But the fire
will be out. Only the blackened earth
will map its dimensions
for a while.
Some will leave and some
will stay to rebuild. The same
as they do when it’s water wrecking
home, livelihood, landscape – when
the big floods thunder, battering our walls,
drowning whole towns, obliterating the land.
Turn up the aircon, these days
when Summers get longer, hotter.
They’ll figure out something before …
The world is burning, but
it’s over there in Europe, it’s
over there in the Middle East. Not here.
Turn off the news! Don’t watch!
All that maiming and starving, I know
you can’t bear, and the cities of bombed rubble.
It’s over there, it’s all over there.
It’s all over, there … The world is burning, but
go to sleep; there is nothing you can do.
Written for Poets and Storytellers United at Friday Writings #218.
Bird, in this world, this
world of today, becomes
a symbol of escape –
if only we could
take flight, soaring
into high air, away
from war, starvation,
terrorist attacks and
homelessness …
our green home no longer
safe. If the economy
don’t get you,
climate
Written for Quadrille #243: Bird is the Word, at dVerse.
(Quadrille: exactly 44 words excluding title, and including a given word, in this instance 'bird'.)
Look closer, fool.
There are five points
on this star, not six.
No need to bash me
(or stab or shoot me)
for being a Jew.
Though
you might want to burn me
for being a witch.
More reasons than one, today
to hide my pentacle
under my shirt.
