MARINA GIPPS - Bards at the Podium

I hear America crying.
Poets and politicians as war heroes.
Surgeons and priests as common criminals.

And where are the philosophers
As deployments threaten to consume us?

Destined to the peeling wail of a teetering helicopter,
Small mosquito in the eye of God.
So certain of our grave futures.

Listen, America, dry your tears,
Don’t bask in the permanent grandeur

Of abandoned radio halls of tears
birthing orators and oratresses.
Steam clean my words for the masses,

Bards at the podium,
Breed the false telegraphs of failing

Presidents, gatekeepers of heroic bosoms.
Purple hearts bleed red
For the barbaric backbone of war,

Another chicken bone speech makes good soup
For the ailing and the sick

Wounds as the craters of ants.
And this great organ called the 'Heart'
Is no longer deemed necessary

As we walk on water like Jesus,
Apprenticed for Armageddon.

MARINA GIPPS

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