Guantanamo

 The former US vice-president Dick Cheney has defended the CIA torture programme as ‘absolutely, totally justified’ —The Guardian

We all remember the towers collapsing

over and over again on our TV screens,

crumbling downwards in clouds of smoke,

and the tiny figures falling, falling.

We all recall the following reports

of all those cell phone messages.

'I love you,' they all said, the most important 

last-chance truth to tell before they died.

Now you claim it was in their name

you committed.... Torture; who does that? 

How do you choose, how do you train

those who will coldly perform cruel harm?

What startles me is the fuss of surprise

now that the facts are out. Surely,

didn't everyone know? I did! I only

had to look at the Aussie they returned.

He came back broken. And the other,

the one they kept so much longer,

his health will never recover from years,

yes, years of — say it — torture.

News flash, CIA: you can't get

useful information from innocent men.

This country is their home and it's mine:
so they are family. My anger is not done.

And I understand America's anger

at the burning towers and the bodies

forever falling. But now your Government 

is just the same. So is ours. They knew.

And if they didn't, they should have known,

not turning the blind eye, swallowing lies.

There is no justification. There never was.

We are all terrorists until we reject revenge.

Submitted for Poets United's Midweek Motif: Human Rights 

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Lift up the covers: Erotic haiku and tanka, November 2014

your voice

an old recording

I’m caressed

1/11/14

Dangerous Flirtation

Hiked up my skirt

danced at the edge of the swell

teasing bare-legged.

The ocean kissed my toes

then surged up past my knees

10/11/14

under his touch

I myself can feel

how soft my breasts

12/11/14

your heart

beating strong and rhythmic

beneath my ear

***

my head on your chest

I listen

to your heart dancing

#lune

15/11/14

warm breath on my skin

his whispers

turn into kisses

#lune

22/11/14

lift up the covers

to bare all

the smiling poet

#lune

Promotional pic for SHE TOO

28/11/14

Linking, on 28/3/15, to dVerse Open Link Night #145

Alice Afterwards

It’s such a fine day, she thinks,

as she saunters down the path to her gate —

a late morning after

her fine night painting the town

red and other colours.

The adventure of escape

no longer leads through rabbit holes

or mirrors. Now she needs

more control, can’t leave the kids

for unpredictable lengths of time.

But if anyone ever had cause

to become an artist — all

the bizarre and beautiful

things she’s seen….

So she slips out at night.

While husband and children snore,

she’s away with her spray cans.

Her signature, Lice,

is so obvious if you know.

But no-one knows.

The slight figure, like others,

is hooded in the dark. She is still

slim and small enough to pass

for a teen, a boy. They never talk

if they even meet. It’s a solitary thing.

She’s fond of solitude now,

having all those offspring and him

in the busy days. She likes her space,

in those silent hours when even

drunks and the homeless are asleep.

She needs no potion these days 

to be tall as a tower, tiny as a flower;

no smiling demonstrations

of a disappearing act. She has her own

magic, dispelling walls.

At 'imaginary garden with real toads' last Friday, Fireblossom asked people to write mash-ups, putting someone famous in a new and different situation. I only just discovered this prompt, a few days late, and it caught my imagination.