Is the title of a very obscure seventies movie

Which I have never watched

But I stole the title

For a piece of art that I created

When I thought I was an artist

And not a poet

I had the vision but not the dexterity

Which cannot be said for my poetry

Where God has gifted me with a precious gift

In short I took a small square of black velvet

And drove six drawing pins through the material

I chose six as it was a perfect number

But there was another meaning

That many of you will guess

And this reminded me of the Academy Awards last night

All glitz and glamour but of little real substance

It was the usual freak show of actresses

Wearing pretty (and not so pretty) frocks

That the junkies and those without hope

On the mean streets of America

Must have financially only dreamt about

A token black actress won one of the awards

But a fine Native American actress was ignored

One can almost write the script

Some celebrities wore silly badges

To show that they cared as they sat around their LA pools

I could only think whether this mattered in the war zones

Where missiles and all the other pieces of shit were a fact of life

Somebody sent me a text asking me a question which I had not considered

What would the the hostages have made of all this glitz and glamour

If indeed they had watched the ceremony

As they rotted away in the tunnels in Gaza

(remember this is an abstract)

I considered my answer and then possibly naively

Noted that I believe and dearly hoped that the conflict would end soon

And in the world as it is I would not be surprised

If one or more of the hostages

Ended up on the AA stage in the next couple of years

Initially Kevin was not sure of my answer but saw my point

If there is not hope then only the dust remains

This said what irritates me is how those with privilege

Virtue signal to prove their moral correctness on certain issues

It makes me feel nauseous

Like many decent people I prefer peace 

But this does not come naturally

It is not a natural process (far from it)

Even an idiot can see that to achieve a peace

One has to work hard to achieve it

And ensure that it is strong

Joe