The map of agony
Is perverse cartography.
Ruining a country,
In a dumb, black sun.
Where blood is the pencil and
Sorrow the measure.
Scratched blind, upon
A tattered flag,
More red with dead,
Unfurling as the bullets stun.
The diagrams describe,
Strange paths leading
To our destiny.
Together,
We can rebuild the sun,
With faithful hands.
Beyond this cursed geography. © Will Barton 2011 Click on images to enlarge
A girl is crying
Through the night.
Her quiet heart of revolution
Beats with many million more.
Their harmony of dreams is
Bloody freedom pumping,
Awakening the oily desert lung.
They are the rock and know,
Guns ranting full of hate,
Send messages of waste and loss.
Dictators destroy and devastate.
Women live to generate and grow.
The cost of life is not in bread.
It will be counted over years,
When she adds another number
To the glorious dead.
© Will Barton 2011 Click on images to enlarge
War is the language of fools.
A jagged, jumbled alphabet,
Gargling in a rotten mouth.
Decaying arguments in the balance.
The world weighs heavy
On these scales.
Spinning gimbals struggle
In a turbulence of gales.
Good and bad are in a trance.
Nonsense and contrivance creaking.
Hypocrisy and muddle.
All these demons leaking
Poison from the human skull.
Synapses just cannot resist,
Too frequently delighted.
On and on the madness twists.
Shattered bone and splattered blood.
The bursting, terrifying flowers,
Bloom from bullet, bomb and blade.
Our garden paradise is blighted.
If only we could see this cull,
Is such a wasted, bitter harvest.
We would do more good,
With hand and spade.
Let’s turn our weapons into tools.
Contradictions still persist,
Seeds will grow but the rats devour. © Will Barton 2011
I burn for you.
A mirror of the sun,
My radiance renewed.
Death is not a waste,
It was my own brave choice.
The smoking carcass,
From which I rise,
Was just a human cage,
Oppression trapped my voice,
Until I yelled my pain.
With a passion and a rage,
I inspire a storm to rain.
Now the stars come singing.
Suns and moons in chorus,
Like birds above the sea,
Stirring every grain.
Natural force embracing,
As a healing light flies free.
Bring honour to your nations
To end this tyranny. © Will Barton 2011
My friend,
Has not seen
His father’s grave.
He could not touch
His mother’s face.
So many deaths
Since freedom fled.
And in those years
He fought so brave.
Keeping memories,
So precious,
To be saved.
Through art and love,
With faith,
He’s lived a life
For a freedom
Which he craves.
And now that old bell
Is ringing strong.
That time is coming
And I call to you.
So proud,
To be your friend.
It cannot now be long. © Will Barton 2011
ARTISTS HONOUR THE DEAD OF LIBYA
Click on images to enlarge
© Will Barton 2011
His heart is a dead core.
Black, cold and full of flies.
Their maggots have eaten his soul.
His blood is a dark thread.
A twisted, vile wire,
Mapping his being
Like a malevolent vine.
Still beating in this acid cage,
The tiny atom blinks
And here resides
The future you can build.
From bones which stink,
Still sodden from the spill.
There is something here to nurture.
A new dawn growing out of rage.
Hearts reddened and in flood.
Rebirth budding into good.
Freedom insists to come of age. © Will Barton 2011
