Whose Embrace

whose embrace condones
your brand of lunacy; the
manic and impure idea
that heralds anarchy to
passion’s ghost
despairing rule of lore

what is lost when innocents
are wrenched from life
is not a fear of God, it is
the wrath your cause ignites
for vengeance just congealed
in battle lust

no dialectic underscored
with brutal force and bombs
and guns will win the brawl
for hearts and minds, you’ve
captured chaos and defined
deniers all as infidel

so whose embrace condones
your thoughts of ancient
prophecy; a mother’s arms
which sting with caustic tears
unshed in binding cloth around
your shattered head
© 4 December 2008, I. D. Carswell

Selfishness

Entirely less a consequence and more
an absent sense, the arrogance they
frame as normative behaviour fazes
and disgraces. Don’t want to see their
faces – avid eyes as shrewd as thieves
delighting in their thievery. Their cries
a strident me! me! me! they prey upon
the weak self-centeredly – say in self
defence that they deserved it anyway.

No charity abrades their dear conceit,
they’d steal the room without a glance
at occupants whose rightful place
would grace a chance for peace and
piety. A queue, they say, to where?
You’re lined up aimlessly! Propriety
would never mar their need of self-
aggrandisement, embrace a selfless
epithet unless it bore a patent name.

Where do these beasts of selfishness
all breed? Their genre rose from seed,
a dour, phlegmatic cognisance that we
are wreckage instanced more in failure
than success, where more is less and
nothing satisfies until there’s nothing
left. And nothing left is what we’ve
now achieved – so go and reap...
© 22 March 2008, I. D. Carswell