Writing on blue screens,
in dust, in night,
half a world away
from what they call civilization,
searching for the view
on their situation,
their bad situation
that no longer merits news.

Where journalistic types
point zoom lenses,
and look uncomfortable
in jackets of boron mesh
and steel skull huggers.
And coiled cables litter the dust,
the snakes of media time,
all slaves to inclined faith.

Long scribbles for a short campaign,
silent protests, mouthed about
the lives on the line
of younger boys and girls,
and the pained scream
of rocket-propelled grenades.
The articulated recorders
of long-standing days.

Who felt the pulse of escalation?
The backlash of polarization?
Some fucking crack this is
in the bleak face of instigation.
You sons of machine guns!!!
I fucking live here,
this dust is all I've got,
just that...
and the will of my God.

Some bastard with a loud mouth
and an overdose of gold trim
screams the fake test
that echos on the stones
of elaborate retorts,
and news comes in,
via fresh radio reports,
in dust clouds
through wired doors
of desert stronghold forts.

Sanity limps through this blasted land
like a lame horse,
religion is a tight lip
zipped up in a verbal body bag,
oh yes, of course.
Loose tongues of traitors,
and informers,
lie like coiled springs,
like wicks under flames,
and under mild duress
spill forth with
places...times...and names.

There are no smoke signals here,
in this land of the besieged,
only camps well guarded
full of internees.
The whine of infiltration
digs fresh craters in the roadside,
shatters trees,
strips away all indignation.
Like some bad dream,
like a deja-vu scream
replayed again and again,
and coherance and competence
are dirty words
that swirl around
this pointless moral drain.