Headcount

We waited for him in the dank
hollow of our memories,

we had watched him march
with us;
the clockwork soldiers -

- all returned from war's disgrace, or some part of them
at least.

How do we explain
to those
who regaled us heroes -
- applauded our medals

war is something that happens to
other people,

not little boys with innocent smiles
and dreams of playing football.

Don't send any more letters
from home,

your son is dusting away
in the desert,

already picked clean.

The soldier’s wife

The wife walked with
her soldier husband
down love street,

its narrow walkway

beyond the cloudy ruins
of political reasoning.

She was happy then

and they kissed beneath
a sunset that swooped
possessively.

Plans of children
stained on their hearts -

- laughter and love hanging
on leafy lined streets

carefree and lost in mindless
love,

that stretched the sun into a monument
of smiles.

Then she was a widow –

and silently the world sank -


- War is hell she used to say.


 

a midnight view

On occasional nights
Gibraltar appears
like a stricken battleship,

alight with fire -

- but other nights
it appears to be
a great monster,

ascended from the depths
of the ocean;

ready to hungrily consume Spain
in one big limestone gulp.

Sicauna

i went to Paris
in search of love

stood on the St-Michel bridge
and watched the Seine
flow out gently towards England -

- while love became a mindless bliss
that forgot me in its twilight stroll.

Instead i found loneliness
as i stood possessed
by the Notre Dame Cathedral

and shards of beautiful women
became an artistic blur.

Beneath the river lights were trapped
like prisoners escaped from Bastille -

- they marched and blinked from Plateau de Langres
and shimmered dreamlike through Cote-d'Or,
their ranks increasing with the night.

Onwards they marched
beneath the Seine,
slowly washing my love away with them towards the sea.

Dawn my saviour remained hours away, east of here.

The Individual

Outside my window
in mid December

i noticed that the trees
that lined my road
were still in full greenage,
as if in some kind of protest
at global warming
and the odd weather
of late.

One tree however,
stood proudly bare
at the frosty sky -

- naked and leafless
its branches clawed skywards,
defiant to the protests around.

Memento

In a piano bar
on the top floor
of a Dubai hotel,

i watch the sea
from a long window
and observe lights
in the city,

while memories
of a woman
will return as dreams

in a distant tomorrow.

The oak tree

At sunset i watched
a tall lonely oak
scratch at the sky
with its long verdant boughs,

as i moved closer
it became fearful
that i might carve my name
into its beautiful trunk-

- so the oak shivered
its leafy limbs

and warned me off towards
the spruce and pine.

Whistle stop

The chef whistled happily
in the galley of the ship
while he ruined lunch
and left us with nothing
but an irritating tune to
hum all day.