Holidays Of the Dead
Genocide Joe
has been strutting
his stuff
getting ready
to deliver
for Christmas.
Santa came north early
as he usually does
and then with sack laden
he moved to the south
and then back north
for those he missed out
playing toy soldiers
with real missiles and bombs.
For children alone
and families fleeing terror
the bombs make a carpet
of what once were homes.
The tanks crush out lives
there’s nowhere to go,
nowhere to hide
for the starved
and the maimed
even the dead
will remember the days
bringing presents
from Genocide Joe.
Armed to the gums
their neighbours afraid
helpless and hating
and hate breeding hate
and more hate breeds power
for the fear of today is the might of tomorrow.
Some history is made by these Santas of War
and more history is made by new Masters of War
and both the living and dead will judge Genocide Joe.
Last Rites
I’d always loved flowers
and you helped me fill my garden,
brought a plant
each time we met.
It was our little ritual
a recurring theme,
flowers for my garden
to bring me joy all my days.
I would like to lie in that garden
in the mist of the soft sweet smelling mist
of them
forever.
But we all have our time,
our time to live,
and our time to die
and only your flowers
will bloom eternally
each in its season,
in their own little ritual
living on beyond me.
I want no funeral rituals.
When I’m dead I won’t see them on my grave,
won’t know that you’ve brought them for me
won’t know if you haven’t.
The flowers you carry
in that season should be for you,
you that I left behind.
Don’t let them die
for me.
Nobody wants dead flowers,
least of all, dead people
in their death days.
First published in Pink Lady, Issue 1, April 2024
Apocalypse Now
The bodies are piling up
again
as past becomes present
again.
victims and survivors
of another Day of the Dead
united
by innocence,
by grief
by failure,
failure
to protect,
failure
to police,
the failure
of lawmakers,
the elected
and electors.
All of them failed.
All of them opened the boxes
and let the witches fly out,
the evil ones,
not the healing ones
so now we cry out,
we victims
who survived.
You failed us
failed us
failed us.
All those days
the dead whispered an echo
that only the deaf could hear.
First published in Oddball, October 27, 2022
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