As moments glitch 
stutter stitching frames together 
-the picturesque, the wastelandscape view- 
a "job well done" and reviewed, 
is then 
victoriously declined, 
allowing war to pick up 
some extra overtime 
measuring us 
with DU dust 

in isotopes and badlands. 

playing evil out on "all-the-world's-a-stage" 
dropping bombshells in armour piercing air raids, 
sinking like a headstone among tidal waves, 
glinting 
in the dust depriving sunlight. 

For each pulled back head, wide eyed with fear 
echo -a world away- resounding cheers 
moulding all for one and one and all's brilliant careers 
into some sad obelisk askew 

teetering toward the death -or youth- of you, 
the winds dispersing ceramic-fired morning dew 
which falls, bunker-busting backward down 
settling, ashen-faced, on skyward facing frowns. 

My dream: the old bill wrote it down, 
of exorcising some demon clown 
bragging of the guns it found 
at the back of the sock drawer... 

Adjusting, tweeking the sniping gunsight's vision 
 -crosshairs-eyed, naked man, woman, soul, up-chucked lunch, derrision- 
concluding some damned decision 
made behind the protective screen of television 

the contaminated entry point of the departing past 
the place where, on arrival, the future grasps 
the questions raised in the last 
strategic meeting, 
timebomb minutes reading, 
held at these now glowing gates of hell. 

Where we and our lugubrious realities dwell 
dust-to-dust breathing, fearing only time will tell 
the miserable tales of those who fell 
from the truly ballistic "ascent of man" 
into this emptying hourglass of DU sand. 

16/2/02