(Clockwork Angel)

Modern Times

How many dollars for a dead mother in Gaza?

Her fingers claw at dust, burying her child

between snipers, between stars and lead,

between life and the plains of death,

where no flag flies anymore.

How many drones for the man who sells a world?

His right hand a shadow spewing algorithms,

a machine god forging slaves in blue light,

priest of autopilot,

angel of kamikaze trance,

Messiah with a touchscreen,

bloodless war, sterile murder,

a dollar per kill, a life per share.

And the border disappears.

The boundary between man and metal,

between choosing and clicking,

between flying and falling,

between god and general.

How many missiles from heaven,

have they, skinny millionaire,

for the city dying in Ukraine?

The skeleton of a flat like an empty rib cage,

the asphalt black with charred bodies,

a cello without strings in the corner of a shelter,

a child drawing with ashes as the tanks roll.

The wind carries voices that land nowhere,

soldiers without faces, drones without conscience,

rockets sleeping in mother's womb and waking in fire.

The mother in Gaza cries without a voice,

the father in Ukraine digs with bare hands,

the man in America sells the wind,

the machine buzzes and falls silent,

the convoy drives on.

The sky remains empty.