Tweet

 

Tweet

 

Your latest tweet and the soldiers grapple
hand to hand now, their weapons forgotten,
right and correct, grunting and staggering, like
two tired old men, bracing each other, fingers
hooked in the other’s cheek, thumb in bloody eye.

Your latest tweet and the secret police come
hammering at the door, pulling people from their
beds, pressing their heads down, with the
sight of a rifle, tying their hands in the cold of
their kitchens, leading them out to the idling vans.

Are we asking too much? Your latest tweet and
the judges are seated and donning their hoods,
the court reporter leans forward to take down the
verdict, an artist composes an unsympathetic sketch,
the crowd in the gallery is raucous with cheering.

Your latest tweet, equates justice and revenge,
with tweezers and toothpicks, fine callipers,
traps and pitfalls, reversals and pogroms.
I scrolled down the thread and every message
was a victim and every victim threw a stone.

 

 

Damen O'Brien

Author: Damen O'Brien

Damen O'Brien is a Brisbane poet. In 2020, Damen won the Moth Poetry Prize, received 3rd Prize in the ACU Poetry Prize and was shortlisted in the Montreal International Poetry Prize. Damen’s journal publications include Overland, Cordite, Stilts and Meniscus. Damen's first book will be published in 2021 by Recent Work Press.

1 thought on “Tweet”

  1. Those last two lines! – such a lovely sharp summation that delivers the gravitas that the previous stanzas were unable to carry. Often, it is a succinct comment like this that causes us to perceive what we didn’t see, despite the weight of many words, many pictures and many opinions.

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