My friend Jenny came second in the Queensland Poetry Slam finals.
The winner was Vivi Baker with her poem on The Murder of Women. I was unable to contact Ms Baker for her permission to publish her poem, that’s why this post is late, but Jenny Campbell gave me her poem to share. I hope you like it. Congratulations to both women poets who will now enter the Australian national finals.
I wanted an image to go with Jenny’s poem and there was so many to choose from, but I thought this one was appropriate. It was one of the many Trump images on Digital Arts UK – following his election last year.
Anatomy of Terror – Jenny Campbell.
Beware the terror everywhere
beneath your skin and in your stare
it’s in the thoughts you dread to think
it’s in our leaders guilty blink.
Its terror this and terror that
please remove your welcome mat
for terror lurks and terror hides
it grips our lives, but who decides
the terror here and terror there?
Invent a villain, Laissez Faire!
A glance into your neighbor’s yard
may reveal a suspicious bard.
Hide your children! Take the stairs!
They come in ones and groups and pairs!
Bombing things, invading shores
they’re using terror as their oars!
But don’t protest or make a sound
‘cause there’s a lot of them around;
and they could use a cluster bomb
and who could guess where that came from?
So, be you sweet or sharp of mind
they target most of human kind
they take our nature firm in hand
to help us fear them on command.
“They” are world leaders, close the door.
To sovereign coin they pimp and whore.
For oil and gas they kill, inflame
but how they fear revolution’s name.
They run our countries, seize our lands
our blood and breath drips through their hands
they kick the weak and rob the poor
delivering terror door to door.
They use their journos as a prop
who spread the terror news non-stop
to make the nightmare crystal clear
they ‘manage’ what we see and hear.
They pillage with psychotic lust
betray their nation’s flagging trust
and then at night they go to bed
indifferent to the lives they shed.
Oh yes, world leaders terrify
and brutalize and falsify.
So if the ‘terror’ gets to you
be alarmed: they built this zoo!
Jenny Campbell ©
Tribalmystic Stories 