love army 2.0

It is easy to feel despondent

with the state of this world

where politics is less about the people

and more about the media

where the image is stronger than the policies

and the words written and delivered

worse than binding contracts crowding shelves

already laden with untenable trifling lies

blacked out by markers that know 

more about our lives than we do. 

It is easy to feel dislocated 

from a life that does not represent mine

where online revolutions are lit daily

but tyrants and leaders 

both western and those deemed heathens

continue in their pursuit of green demons

and listen not to the cries of their people.

It is easy to sit back and judge 

a new generation of could be warriors 

gyrating to video clips of near naked nymphs

ingesting drugs designed to numb

and denying that the end 

is nigh and glum. 

It is not so easy

to have those thoughts

whilst sitting in a small grey room

where grey clouds are gathering force outside

to deliver their little armies of 

translucent drops that will sting the windows

but only softly 

so that all we will hear 

are the muted murmurs of the world outside those grey walls

for all the colours of the world

are right here in this room

I can see them in their eyes

lit up by fluorescent lights

not nearly as bright 

as their fluorescent beings

where their small shy smiles

are just open enough to let me in

And it is because of these new existences

sitting around me

I believe suddenly 

in something I had forgotten existed.

It is so easy to blame a new generation

for being apathetic and lazy 

focused too much on their games 

and online lives

to worry much about 

the state of this world.

But who wouldn’t want to escape

such an inheritance as what we have left them

this is an unravelling world -

it is not fair to hand them the spool

and demand they gather it all up again.

So being in that small room

where their eyes lit up that grey space

and placed their fire in my heart

where their truth embraced me in a sensation

I had sincerely forgotten 

I remembered to believe 

in something like a future. 

It is not so easy

to avoid joining their army

and I will not resist their call to arms

I will stand before you 

with my hand in a true salute

and embark on a new journey

where they are my leaders

and I their loyal follower

for I too have hugs for ammunition 

and kisses to placate the angry masses 

I too have a belief in something better than this

and don’t care for the grief of generations too late

only for the relief 

that being part of their Love Army can bring.