WITH GENTLY STREAMING EYES

by Jerome Betts





FARMING leaders have warned that up to an estimated 10,000 ewes and lambs have died in the recent snowstorms, costing the industry hundreds of thousands of pounds and leaving farms struggling to stay afloat. --The Herald (Scotland), 10 April 2013
 

Poor lambs! No chance to play your parts
On legs that learn to leap and run
And touch so many human hearts
With games and gambols in the sun?

Your jumping joints won’t now assert
That spring’s a time to cast off cares −
Though youth and charm would not avert
Your fate as bloody butchers’ wares.


Jerome Betts lives in Devon, England, and has contributed verse to LightenUp OnLine, New Verse News, Per Contra, Snakeskin and Tilt-A-Whirl, as well as numerous print publications.

EXODUS-TO-DUST

Poem by Charles Frederickson

Graphic by Saknarin Chinayote

For Palestinians, Israeli elections signal deepening occupation --Haaretz, January 21, 2013

Emptiness echo full of itself
Reverberating eardrum downbeat tambour percussion
Vainglorious ambitions disconnected unanswered prayers
Orchestrated symphony forever left unfinished

Terra not so firma quaking
Earth reopened bottomless sinkhole aftershocks
Natural depression hollow subway passages
Ants streaming through clogged arteries

Shorn sheep led to slaughter
Tough tasteless mutton gyros grilled
Axis rotating in wrong direction
Anti-clockwise alarm no turning back

Unholy land-grab borderless uncivil war
Black white gray distinctions obliterated
Singed hawk feathers decalcified plumes
Phoenix smoldering in spitfire embers

Fearless hate-mongers playing for keeps
Recycled unsettled grievances sold out
Unruly mob committing unjustifiable offences
Numbed conscience bleeding cardinal sins

Mauve dusk undermining tomorrow’s dawn
After dark luminous eclipsed aura
Overshadowed neon deep purple afterglow
Nocturnal rhapsody evocative fallen stars

 No Holds Bard Dr. Charles Frederickson and Mr. Saknarin Chinayote proudly present YouTube mini-movies @ YouTube – CharlesThai1 .

NOVUS ORDO SEDORUM

Poem by Charles Frederickson

Graphic by Saknarin Chinayote 

Whose world is it anyway
Shorn sheep led to slaughter
Innocent lambs barbecue spit grilled
Monopoly Boardwalk 99% mortgages foreclosed

American-can unipolarity chiding homeless hubris
Spreading unfounded panic humiliating intimidation
Displaced classless NOocracy abysmally ignorant
Resentful of U.S. vs. THEM status Quo Vadis

Corporate think-thank-thunk tanks Foxy televisionairies
Right-wing plot achieving universal domination
Bushwhacker has-beens declaring bleached supremacy
Overacting upstages gilded lily abomi-Nation

In Gold Wet Rust imperial
Self-interest oily motivation Super-Capitalism
Federal Reserve 4N Relations Council
IMFucked Vaseline friend or enema

Rapture theologians blissfully force open
Heaven’s Gate to annihilation prophecy
Nuclear holocaust Great Armageddon battle
Fallen angels neon halos unplugged

Where New World gives orders
Superclass dictating microchip virtual implants
Viral Internet cyber-propaganda mindset virus
Sold Out to highest bidder

Author's Note: Inspired by Earl Wilcox’s nudging.

 No Holds Bard Dr. Charles Frederickson and Mr. Saknarin Chinayote proudly present YouTube mini-movies @ YouTube – CharlesThai1 .