Syria is being bled white.
The metaphor is painful:
red paints all our inner
skins in just the same shade –
liquid ruby. In
the dripping out of all this worth
they are wan and weak
minds wandering fleet
tall strangers in navy suits
make bleak press conference
speeches saying We Can Help –
but look at this aid: it comes by way
of dropping bombs from
bloodless planes, no ruby drink
to risk losing, deaf to the howls,
dumb to reply to the question;
How did you think this would help?
And the whiteness that somehow survives
standing, walking in its nice navy suit
is watered by some other red
replaced the day he swore to represent
his voters – not as his fellow humans, only as
the holders of the pens that ticked the box
beside his name. And then
he’ll call on human values, courage,
compassion, heroism, moral codes
while his own moral code is lying
in a pool on holiday sipping champagne.
This bloodless lust for throwing in
another explosive device and calling it
compassion, better than standing back
and doing nothing, is the creaking of
machines in need of oil; there’s no soul
in there to suffer for their lie, only
the shine of brass buttons on navy suits
a team of hairdressers and make-up dusters
to ensure the message comes across,
that the machine passes for human.
Give me a man in tatters
alive and hurting
let me hear the things he says
unshepherded by press release
and gleaming teeth; let me
perceive the rotten pieces, scuffed shoes,
zits and second-hand coat –
I want to know he knows the end result
from bitter experience
before he tries to make me see
the need to push
that bloodless button.