Poem of the Month
Nursery Rhyme for Big Brother

By Derek Webster

Published on November 6, 2015

Palace flags and shoot-to-kill orders,
cardboard tanks and well-lit borders,
dungeons and lice, grenades and books,
photos retouched and high-kicking boots,
bright deadly frogs, bureaucratic snails,
land-reform talks that never fail to fail,
gas in the mountains, e-coli in the food,
gold chocolate fountains and light sweet crude.

Do you dream of rending wrong from right?
Good luck, my darling, good luck and good night.

More Poetry

Nursery Rhyme for Big Brother

Palace flags and shoot-to-kill orders,
cardboard tanks and well-lit borders,
dungeons and lice, grenades and books,
photos retouched and high-kicking boots,

The Jungle of Screaming Souls

On the Jungle of Screaming Souls,
helicopters dropped napalm bombs.
The battalion of men beneath
ran in every direction, on fire. 
Scattershot blasts, and one by one
machine guns cut them down
until there were only ten.

Ward Calls

First, post-diagnosis apology.
Next, a trained volunteer’s called in
to make the lonely wait less so.
Then, the oncologist comes armed
with a social worker, to talk it out, softly.