the world at ten.

On the news
this morning -
77 dead.

I totted up
the named and unnamed
as the kettle boiled;

and peace treaties?
None. But murders
abound,

terrorists threatening
me in my kitchen,
sipping tea.

Yesterday also,
broken bodies,
blood,

tear-gas revolutions
in my ear,
walking past Starbucks.

And each of us
walks on;
horrific news

implicit in
our very beings.
Until Earth fights back.

Criminality
pale
against Nature.

And amidst wreckage,
innocence
gives a smile of sorrow,

blinking, impossible
in its wisdom.
Silence at last.

A boy, unnamed,
whose lips belie
grief unfathomable.

He smiles.
The world waits for tears -
but he smiles.

Suddenly
news is more than pictures,
it is Man himself;

all human
thought and breath
that brought us here

was consumed
this morning -
in the smile of a broken boy.