The shooting of Malaysian Air flight 17 represents a clear breach of international law by Vladimir Putin, both in jus im bello and jus ad bellum.

Malaysian Air


How could you do this to us, Bes,
Aiming your guns high above Donetsk
In Shakhtarsk Raion by the River Mius?
Smells like spinelessness and flesh
Scald the throat with a Malasian Air

Your nom de guerre sums up your fire
Your aim is thirty thousand feet in the sky
Shoes thump later into ploughed troughs
While towels float in puffs to sprawl
Upon the sunflower fields of Rozsypne

No one takes the blame, though voices
Of shock are recorded and photos
From satellites show blast scars
And children of the village press fingers
Into the tire pits of a Buk launcher

Come forward cowardly Putin Russia
Raise your true Olympic flag in the stadium
Of airspace in Ukraine before us all
Under the stranded limbs, and Kleenex
Whisps in the trees of Hrabove


For Robin Williams, 1951-2014













Laughter
For Robin Williams, 1951-2014


I.             The act of kissing
                                Tongues sculpt one another
                Of thinking well
                                Amygdala and frontal lobe
                Or thought-less-ness
                                Walking that writhing path

II.            The art of fight
                                Hot oil onto marauders
                Of running from
                                Tunneling.  Camouflage
                Or right struggle
                                Piecing together shards

III.           The chore of laughing
                                When gods abandon
                Of keeping pace
                                With giants, youth
                Or kicking the habit
                                And it falls back to earth
               
IV.          The man of tears and mouth
                                Feverish creative
               Of stage, Robin Williams
                                Hanged at sixty-three
               Or numb and wondering
                                If lungs filled and feinted with

V.            Laughter