Robert Verdon, #106, Free World

refugee child in a plastic tent

by razor wire on the edge of the West

(more fortunate than those in Africa

with a thousand k of desert to cross on foot)

you are close enough to hear the squeals

of the dry ball-bearings of their own society

who follow the latest ‛socialism of fools’ and

call for air strikes, not missionaries at 20 euros a month

terrified of terror and a meaningless life on the ill-kept street

while parliamentary poodles prattle about voting, freedom ‛n’ fries