by Doc Pickles

Spangled Eyes

This is the harbour I've seen before in dreams:
a Grecian lighthouse, a Gothic cathedral, trees
of Mediterranean countenance that laze
against the salted breeze in evening, leaves
glowing orange from all directions, fishing boats
wobbling in flocks as seabirds of all sorts,
coincide in Marseilles and cast their jeweled eyes
on this meeting place at the delta of the mouth of the Rhône.
All mariners at ports of call behave
much the same today as those who came
before them, squinting spangled eyes down narrow streets
cramped with softened footfalls crossing lanes
that weave as ancient trade routes wove and flowed
like tides in eddies that tug on ships at moor.

Tasting with two tongues

A war that's not declared between two states
but still goes on, returning home the dead,
is a manufactured war built of vague queries,
lines in the mud replaced by lines in the head,
a tumbleweed war in an uncertain lee, a rock
laid to rest in a tar sands heap, a tree here
in a zoned meadow, the smoothed stone set atop
the mantelpiece, the weeds moving in to persevere,
a war on what to say and how to wear
the outward mark of the safe state everywhere,
wars on terror, wars of control everywhere,
not a fixed spot, not here, not there,
rootless, malleable in skilled hands,
tasting with two tongues and sleighted hand.