(unfinished)
Sadako Sasaki
Hibakusha
Tears holding hands
School friends together
Running races
Joyfully growing
Folding paper cranes
One thousand for peace
Thousands massacred
Wind, rain, and fire
Tears shed for you
Hiroshima.
(unfinished)
Sadako Sasaki
Hibakusha
Tears holding hands
School friends together
Running races
Joyfully growing
Folding paper cranes
One thousand for peace
Thousands massacred
Wind, rain, and fire
Tears shed for you
Hiroshima.

By birth,
by blood,
by bleeding,
a Muslim
a human
being.
Massacred
mercilessly,
as if excreted
onto his chopping board
and swept into a rubbish bin.
My crime was to pray
to the wrong god
on Friday morning.
He was the judge,
the jury,
licenced to kill.
1.
I was killed at school.
The bullets hit me somewhere
in the eye, ear, nose & throat,
maybe through my heart.
I didn’t feel a thing
pierce my umbilical pipeline.
I guess my mother’s blood gushed.
Maybe she hadn’t decided what she’d do with me.
All that ammunition …
Cartridges for crucifixions
Explosions of extreme unction
A Hell of Heaven
I imagine the bard broken.
I was gone within a heartbeat, snuffed out.
Was I the only one?
2.
I was elected at home.
The votes cost me
a bank balance weighed with wishes.
I keep eyes, ears, nostrils, speeches primed.
I feel throbbing hearts,
invocations of investors …
shareholders sighing like furnace …
I am a political animal,
I stand to attention for the last post
in association with my brothers-in-arms,
with every voter who craves the right to shoot,
to the grave.
I’ve earned the money to pursue the sins of the Senate,
the hustings of the House.
I’ve paid the price
Am I the only one?
3.
I am the gun that shot the child
in many places.
I have an owner.
A kind, gentle, considerate, generous, careful citizen.
An emotionally retarded, psychotic, neglected, deprived, abused, vengeful
collector of beauties.
My barrel gleams.
I am an automatic obliterator,
my owner is a dead shot,
proud, defender of the faith of our fathers,
responsible,
lover of fire & brimstone.
I love my owner.
Am I the only one?
_________________
(17 February 2018 – in honour of 17 humans massacred in Florida – 14 students + 3 faculty members)


‘It’s hard
to start…’
______
After Sunday
A roll of the dice
A cut of the cards
Slot-machines
Night and Day
rolled into one
Background & Hinterland.
Did Elvis chant
‘Let’s Strip You Bare’?
Music & Musaque
‘ Where have all the jute-boxes gone?’
——
What’s your poison?
Your cocktail?
Your justification?
To be sure,
none of us expected you to order
“Massacre on the Rocks”.
No parrot sang
“Pretty Polly
Off your trolly
No folly
Pretty Polly
Off-duty
Police officer
Nurse
Local government employee
A couple of Canadians
With his fiancé
A very good mother
Heavy-duty mechanic apprentice
Maple Ridge
Big Sandy
Henderson
23
29
20
22,000
Vesuvius
Pompeii on the Strip
_______
‘I won’t be right
until I’ve written
– even then
I won’t be right.
I lost my heart in Vegas
Nevada
Cork.’

Rambling on Ramblas
lives extinguished, spirits crushed
the swallows in tears.
‘We struck on Ramblas
died killing humanity’
peacocks mourn today
Starved to her death
Al-Qaswa Barcelona
the Prophet in tears.

Je Suis Charlie
A few minutes was enough
a smattering of bullets
a cascade of hate
rained down
out of a cloud
loaded with purpose
ammunition
attrition
a mission.
Twelves apostles of humour
twelve souls of freedom
twelve bodies.
In the name of Abraham
and all the shared scars
like wounds from a bloody god
7 January 2015