Fog

by Rip Bulkeley

We have to know. Brave journalists
both risk and lose their lives for that.
But information managers
are too strong for them. They flood us
with lies and photo opportunities.
If they told the truth, we would hear
words like oil, gas, and wheat more often.
Instead we get people yelling Rus, aggressor,
crime, victim, Fascist, and genocide.
Like swifts we build a picture from this
manure. But let’s face it; this is Punch
& Judy without the sausages.

Slaughter

by Rip Bulkeley

Spare a thought for the murderers.
Failing to conquer, unprepared,
deceived, demoralized past bearing,
accursed sometimes by themselves,
left hopeless of happiness, they butcher
the defenceless who despise them.
They did not leave their homes for the
sake of Donbas gas and Black Sea oil,
or for any part of this. If they ever
return, they will not return. They, who
have already lost everything, suck
the bitter dregs of knowingly useless
displacement. The rules in hell are
incomprehensible to other people.