War machine

Seven Royal Marines arrested on suspicion of murder in Afghanistan

The Telegraph, 12 October 2012

British soldiers are schooled in the slaughter

of sheep. It’s where they first learn

to look a fellow creature

in the eye and take away its life.

It’s where they learn to appreciate

the artistry of the kill

and lose their discomfort among the remains

of the slain. And if once being human

was synonymous with humane

the killer needs find something of death

lodged in his breast. There is nothing

new in drone warfare

if a man must be given an ROE card

to tell him when it is wrong to kill.

(c) Slush Poet

The apple that survived the fall

Girl left for eight hours in car with murdered family

The Guardian, 7 September 2012

A campsite in the Massif Central.

Mountains whisper with voices of streams.

An amber girl gathers apples in the shade

of gnarled limbs.

Many lie bruised. Her grandmother scrutinizes,

sets them down

like stillborn kittens on the ground.

The amber girl prizes most the apples with leaves,

the ones she believes still alive and becoming trees,

not fooled by the magic of seeds.

Granny furbishes one on her sleeve, eat this one

that survived the fall.

A banderole road

shadows a wind-chime stream,

the engine hums

a lively tune to the pitch and roll

of the mountain’s hem. And then

the music stops

and screaming begins,

windows shattering,

shards, a blizzard

of glass inside the car.

Amber girl dives for cover

beneath her grandmother’s skirts.

Crack of snapping wood,

words not understood,

a smell like bonfire night,

door wrenched, flung wide,

yelling, cracking,

her sister's wordless pleading,

father, mother,

another crack, and another.

A roadside in the Massif Central.

The dead whisper with voices of streams.

An amber girl under canvas in the shade

of gnarled limbs.

(c) 2012 Slush Poet

The running man

Liverpool shooting leaves one man dead

The Guardian, 14 June 2012

To commemorate the recent passing

of the Olympic flame

someone chalked on our pavement

the outline of a running man.

Rain has washed the chalk away now,

only his crimson heart remains

and that seems to be running away

if only down the drain.

(c) 2012 Slush Poet