Sentinel Poetry: Expression Warehouse

Cruise Crusade


Admire me now with shock and awe as I am born and burst
to life in sulphurous clouds from your anchored vessel
snugly distanced from my target.
I am now locked on.
I am armed.

Guide me, oh thou Great Redeemer as I soar above our mother Tigris,
the winged messenger of Bush and Blair.
I am the Philistine, I am the plague sanctioned by you, their God.
I am hell unleashed on Abraham's daughters.

I am you, polite observer, in your warm armchair surfing through
Ubiquitous images of the ghostly conflict distilled in prime-time bulletins

I am the iridescent plume that silhouettes the sleeping Baghdad skyline.
I am the myriad of fireworks that brightens your screen, momentarily
obscured by the forced facial gravitas of the calmed reporter.

I am you, voyeur. Embrace me, brother, as I murder in your name.
I am your sword, thrusting, slashing, severing the head of the Saladin
you nurtured and befriended.

Be with me now as I pierce the concrete bunker and in this pulse of time
see the cowering faces of those who shelter from my crusade.

The paralysed faces, frozen in fear, as they hear the music of my roar
The children suckling warm to the breasts of shaking mothers.
The infants, unborn, soon to be blended in a knee deep broth of
amniotic puss as shards of skull and tender sockets explode in my
Armageddon

I am the footage you are not allowed to see, too real for your tender viewing.
I am the collateral catastrophe overlooked in the slick slideshow of the
stuttering soldier.

Not as smart as you were told, you cannot switch me off


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