Beyond bombs
ears tune out nightly news—
Tune into fists-pounded walls
shrieks out the mouth
seeping through from flat 22.
Between blowouts
chaos is a distant backdrop—
Shifting eyes, twitching energy
paint home city sidewalks
into lands of wandering lost.
Above smoke plumes
Heaven’s in sight—
floating sweatshop in the sky
tasking a million battered infant angels
to knit a turtleneck too tight—
And our world chokes in it.
--
Born and raised in Los Angeles, Michael Roque discovered his love for poetry and prose amid friends on the bleachers of Pasadena City College. Now he currently lives in the Middle East and is being inspired by the world around him. His poems have been published by literary magazines like Cholla Needles, The New Yorker, The Literary Hatchet and others. https://www.instagram.com/roquewrites2009/