Kevin Pocock

Today a reporter died.

On the front line.

And I know soldiers do,

well it was a journo this time.

Does that make me despicable?

That it grabbed my attention?

See his honourable intention

was to break safe convention.

Report from the front and risk the

fatal shunts of bombs and bullets.

It’s almost too much for me to consider.

And I know that soldiers’ hearts quiver to stop more often,

than that of Rupert’s, which softened my ears.

But it brought it home once again.

The conflict, the wars that never disappear.

The complete waste of it all.

Kids with no two parents to call.

Just the one lucky enough to

be left, not killed, not cleft from

lives with the knives, guns,

small explosive suns that rise to die so quickly

that the day isn’t slow enough

to see the stuff of lives flash past.

To see the shadow it casts on those affected.

A single blast dissecting so many stifled shouts.

When loved ones hear ‘dear Rupert’ is no longer about.

But solace is taken

making what peace there ever can be.

He…did what he thought had to be done.

He. His parent’s son, with children of his own.

He disowned the danger.

Ranged further than my pen dares

In search of news from ground zero.

And to some, that might make him a hero.

But upon me, just a sadness falls.

Because Rupert, spelt anyway you like,

And called in any of the world’s languages.

Into any name that fell the same way.

Speaks to me about horrors,

and asks if we can stop.

Can we…

Make IED: Improvised Explosive Device

Mean IED: It Ended Definitely.

And for once be talking about

the death of a concept.

Than the death of life meaning more people,

without people.

Heard news and wept.

The space between chimes draws me in

The black keys.

That once I thought all was symphonic,

Without subtlety.

Pasting over minor cracks.

If divinity dare exist in this scientists’ playground

of a mind, it does it in melodies.

Cutely poised treble, and

vibrato troubling little but

the air lulled to soothe.

When ascending scales

descend the males spines

and dining femme fatales

Mounting clamour finds,

‘Oh my words’.

It’s the space between the words that

hold these thoughts

caught spider-like.

Dancing on a thread without anchor.

That I only saw once.

It is the gap of peace between troubed

Spikes

In daily lives.

And I’d never noticed before.

That it’s the space between chimes that draws me in.

The Black Keys.

I can’t hear a whale song.

I can’t hear sea tides ride a high tempesta.

I can’t see skies, but for fake wallpaper.

Pasted at an aspect ratio of 4:3 through a disingenuous window.

I hear the repeating of the delete key in flurries.

Worrying the letters that came before with the risk

of their hurrying annulment.

I can hear befuddlement racked in my own grey matter.

Natter of grumbles wanting to write about this and that.

About how I should be sleeping.

And how an alarm beeping would one day be welcomed.

I can hear how I would be beating fleeting woes back

with act after act of fluid linguistic impresario.

And I can hear critics lambasting polysyllabic sprees.

I see nothing, but the words appear ahead of me.

And occasional glances to the fingers just to make

sure of respectable behaviour.

I’m not trusting them enough just yet to allow full reign.

I fall words to space in patches.

Like a test is won with the sum of catches.

A product finalised through batches.

Letters form in-mind to create words

And hear a mind herd them semantically.

Though quite randomly they attract and form phrases.

Some of which may one day make it to pages

worth reading.

While for now this skill just needs seeding.

A little fluidity.

And a  few spare rays of Autumns day’s until fully begun.

Because I can’t hear a whale song.

I can’t hear sea tides ride a high tempesta.

I can’t see skies, but for fake wallpaper.

Pasted at an aspect ratio of 4:3….