News From The Front Lines (Poetry)

Maybe half-right                 News comes laced with
perhaps part-wrong             propaganda
I have the words                 war a stage play
but lack the song               caught on camera

I heard the rumour              Too few think to
glimpsed the crime            even question
I told myself                      simply swallow
it wasn’t mine                    each suggestion

Yet fault is common           like a lynch mob
to all things                       bay for blood
the halo slips                    and lose no sleep
and fouls the wings            their conscience good

The promise wavers           I can’t agree
vows forgot                       my small protest
forgiveness never               can not be heard
worth a lot                        above the rest

and words so often            Calm voices carry
misconstrued                    on the wind
in conversation’s                brave flags of
cheap fast food                  revolution pinned

I used to listen                   to every tree
searched for sense             the sixties grew
in all the babble’s               rooted strong
mad pretence                     the word carved true

So little kindness               That ideal got
faith or tact                        away somehow
fiction foremost                  we need it back
thin on fact                        time starts now