A War of Words

by David R J Sealey

A grey day when it shouldn’t be,

global eyes focussed on coming together

to compete in coliseums of ice

obscuring a slow-drifting fog of war,

and the cheering crowds conceal

an inevitable whisper in the wind

that nobody wants to hear,

but it comes.

Temperatures drop several degrees

in the face of global warming,

a warning shot fired in the former USSR,

ignites a flaming tornado of words.

A media shitstorm whips up the heat

to an unbearable degree, papers

are signed, cameras pointed at the pen

obscure the trigger finger.

A war of words breaks out,

an intercontinental ballistic first strike

launched from the mouths of the ignorant,

oblivious to our voices, deafened

by the ringing of the counter-strike,

justified by those that sell stories

in the interest of flogging rags that

tear open wounds and won’t bind them.