Barbarity All Around Me Poem by Mark Heathcote

There is this barbarity around me.
And although I close my tired, leaden eyes
I can't close my heart and make it a detainee.
My soul and I can't make it naturalise.
There are times when bloodhounds come baying at my door.
Stop, stop their howling, go, play, hide, and seek.
and like a tortured ravenous carnivore
They go cold, hungry, and morally weak.
In human clothes, I can be cruel.
Leave my cage and join that pack, bloodthirsty.
Eyes open, war-hardened and frozen, burning fuel
Is this life just somehow perfunctory?
I don't know where these feelings come from.
But all that barbarity makes me numb.