EPIC FURY

Image by Pete Linmore, the Digital Artist, www.pixabay.com

By Jim Aitken

Do not be fooled by the classical title.

The straw-haired clown who started the war

is a man much more akin to Homer Simpson

than to the author of the Iliad.

The epic that came out of ancient Greece

has been much reduced in cultural terms

to nothing more than a McDonald’s menu,

the extent of the straw-haired man’s reading.

As for the fury he and his buddy unleashed

it was not for any justice that had been traduced

but, as before, for the black gold they possess

for the god he worships is the god of Mammon.

He and his buddy do not care about the people

they bomb, the destruction they create, they

seek to award the contracts to rebuild what

they have destroyed, as in Gaza and in Iraq.

Crude gunslingers causing havoc with others

and creating many others to loathe them more

as more migrants will start fleeing the aftermat

to be reviled by the ‘free nations’ saying, ‘We’re full.’

This is no epic conflict testing new high-tech systems,

no Gatling guns against bows and arrows, this is

crude gunslinging of a new frontier in the wild West

and the furies may yet drive the crude gunslingers mad.

BIG DON AN’ PETE

HEIDCASE

The reporter fella oan the nicht news

said thit the Middle East is jist the maist

turbulend place in the hail o’ the warld.

Ah agreed wi’ him but the fella didnae

say why this wis. Ah thocht o’ aw the eil

thit comes frae the place. Sairly thon’s why?

Big Don decidet tae tak Venezuela’s eil

an’ noo he wahnts Iran’s eil, an’ ‘cos he

wahnts it so tae does yon fella Pete Heidcase.

He’s Big Don’s Secretar’ for War an’ he tellt us

thit the Iranians are ‘rats’ for hidin’ unnergroon.

But is it no’ whit abody wid dae if bombs fa’ doon?

Big Don cried them ‘scumbags’ an’ ah thocht thit

the first casualty o’ war is ayeways langwij.

Naebody oan the news taks them up for this.

Seems they’re tae feart tae say onythin’ aboot them

but ah’m gaun back tae Plato an’ his philosopherkings,

‘cos these twa cuddies are leadin’ us tae hell.

Donkey images by Anne Au and Admiral Lebioda, www.pixabay.com

JIM AITKEN is a member of the board of Dove Tales and is an associate editor of Culture Matters, where these poems have previously been published.

He is a poet and dramatist living and working in Edinburgh, a tutor in Scottish Cultural Studies with Adult Education and he also organises literary walks around the city.