Fire On Mars

Of course, there's some starving child somewhere

in some hot, arid country

with flies buzzing about its eyes

as though assuming it's dead

It's too weak to wave them away

What's my hollowness and depression?

As the sun beats down like a fire on Mars.

The news just said another soldier's dead

another car bomb, another land mine,

another martyred anonymity wrapped in explosives

Sand and skin set ablaze and head blown-off

and yet another wife and innocent little family

heart-rending images of sadness and loss

a nicer man you could never wish to meet

a loving husband and the greatest ever dad

I have sympathy and yet I feel nothing.

Little better than a stone on a parched planet

Little more than a rock in a hard place.

Perhaps I'm a murderer waiting to snap

Or the seed in a tyrant's brain

I'm ready to go, I'm ready to grow

in a t.v. screen or a front-page headline

in stories of actresses, celebrities and wannabes

commercials for diets and nuclear families

chefs, cars, free gifts, and lotteries

chat-show-hosts and charities, housewife-dreamt fantasies

skin-deep vanities and superficial realities

soap-opera gossip and royalty's new shoes

cheap flights, drunken holidays, and supermarket booze

self-publishing communication and games-console duels

all the latest technology for money-making mules.

Why should I care and why should it matter?

I have hatred and yet I feel nothing

My soul is a hell like a fire on Mars

What will this world ever make of me?

What's hollowness filled with depression?

What's barrenness now but a lesson

in over-indulgence and saturation?

Always somewhere someone suffers and it might soon be me

When in some fairy-tale tragedy a princess dies

should I have wept with the people and lined-up with flowers?

Am I expected to feel amid so many lies?

You've got your troubles and I've got mine

My reflection in the mirror -

it seems so benign.

Reviews

[.]

the saturation of media in our lives and the desensitizing of things that we should be shocked, stunned and upset by..has been played out on our tv screens, into the papers, you tube and glossy mags, not forgetting games consoles..you see it in your child with there non plus attitude to so many issues or their clouds opinions speaking words from others mouths full of bullshit..god!! You moved me..really outstanding..now I am thinking..f**k this s**t LOL

[Ruth]

Devons, this is incredible!
A brilliantly thought through poem that devours the chaos of life! A hell that surrounds us all daily, not the hell that is often thought of!
Sometimes the reflection can only try to decipher what surrounds us!
Awesome work for the image love!
xx

[miSS LEaf]

wow, is your real name Glyn? it happens to be one of my favourite poet's name as well.. btw, this is such a great poem~

[jenniewren (J.W. Bouwma..]

ah yes - around the world there are tragedies greater, wider-ranged, far more drastic than most of those we carry around inside ourselves on a day to day basis..

but

how do you tell yourself that your own echoing hollowness is of lesser import? how do you shake off that horrible fingerprint of despair? you always end up feeling so useless, leading intoi the feeling of pettiness, serving only to push you further under.. that is the insidiousness of the foetid tarpit known as depression..

fires on mars, indeed.. we are but a blip, in the grand scheme of things, but because all we are is that one blip, does that make us any less in need?

incredible Glyn.. and it strikes to my innermost heart