Beyond the Bombs
By Michael Roque

 

Beyond bombs
ears tune out nightly news—

 

Tune into fists pounded walls
shrieks out the mouth
seeping through from flat 22.

 

Between blow outs
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 angel
to knit a turtle neck too tight—

 

And our world chokes in it.

 

Michael Roque from Israel discovered his love for poetry and prose amid friends on the bleachers of Pasadena City College. He is inspired by the world around him. His poems have been published by literary magazines like Ink Pantry Publishing, WordCity Literary Journal, Hot Pot Magazine and others.