Copyrighted Material C.J. Birch – All rights reserved
A STATE OF MODERN AFFAIRS – 2012
When I turned on the news today I was greeted by violence.
A few deaths.
Some dreadful bruising, bodies prone, guns everywhere.
A man trying to remember how to remedy a bad situation
because he felt compelled to do something for someone else.
He got himself allegedly reportedly dead.
Blurry photos, some blurb, a watery tribute from some propaganda machine.
My dilemma, watching his footage,
was whether to feel dismayed or disillusioned.
That his reported death was as yet ‘unconfirmed’
made me wonder why it was being reported.
Incase he was dead shall we tell his family?
Incase he is dead, what shall we tell his family?
All the bad guys dead in a decade.
Is this a reasonable expectation to expect of our leaders?
The contemporary problem in this warring world
is that we cannot look to our leaders
when they will not look us in the eye.
I suspect the Somalian pirates have done their job before.
They are that good at it.
It is like they have nothing left to lose.
Perhaps they came from broken homes. Perhaps they came from no homes.
I believe this would make a difference in a man’s choice of affairs.
Actually I think Somalia is getting the Ethiopia treatment right now.
How many children can we, first world citizens with a conscience, starve before Christmas Day?
Let’s see if we can make it 7 million.
That would then cancel out the holocaust and we can all rest.
This is how stupid this world is with its outsourced assets.
Wake up, world. Wake up.
C.J. Birch
C.J. Birch 
I really like the flow of this poem. The tone was really really dry and sarcastic. I like that. Sometimes I prefer to write this way. Good job.
A strong powerful poem with thoughtful statements in each verse. Indeed we need to wake up and not follow this dream.