there it is in night
I walk the path
may as well have
eyes closed I find if
I look down I see
shoes black and
am less likely to fall
into holes over stones
there
it is in morning only just
stretching limbs yawning green morning
fresh birds call people over eighty and me
climb the sun barely a colour
the old people say
good morning to me
and wonder why
I am
there
in day time sky blue grey people
from families tour groups cities
on other islands crane necks to
look at the stone wall castle that
lives on the mountain then crane
to look at me
there
in evening joggers and I
exhaust pant our way up the
side pass me easily twice
over twice the
speed at the top they are
stretching their legs breathing
stomach hard sit ups not seeing
the sun as it sets down
there.
FOR THE CIVILIANS
(OPERATION PROTECTIVE EDGE)
too scared to leave my computer night by night
thinking one keystroke might
somehow prolong a life a gasp a grasp knowing
I had to watch because you asked
not to be forgotten knowing
I could hear you, but the tap of nails hardly
honed or sharp enough to prise wax from the ears
of leaders and media, rat-tail lips twitching,
mottled and streaked, sated and sleek,
they will never stand tall yet
it is you who is
stooped
my words cannot compete
explosions rip you from your skin,
the white flag from your hand, send your scarf
high above you not quite fluttering
like the papers that ordered you
from your house.
my words cannot compete
bullets swoop, magpies greedy for
the glint of jackets as you gather
the dead, the seared, the wounded, the ones
not vacuumed into burnt beyond-known. you are
soon to join them
on the roads, in the schools, in their houses
your children have nowhere to run, knowing
this I watch knowing that once it is
black and messages no longer come
I will know nothing except the piles of rubble
vacant of people or buried beneath, a soldier atop.
once it is black, where do they go?
once it is black, where do you go?
misconfigured half-beating hearts
amputated
a woman gives birth and maybe
there was joy in her voice as her child
was born
because a heartbeat is a heartbeat
a life a life
right?
but who will hear once all goes dark
the murmur of his heart
once all goes dark
what chances are there for
the murmur
of this heart?
FOR GRYFFYN, JULY 25, 2014 – JULY 31, 2014
AND HIS PARENTS
the english language lost
the day I lost my son
its pregnant pauses
impregnated odours
making all not alive alive
except for my son
some would sell their first born
others swaddle in leaves and wicker
and cast them afloat amongst the rushes
to save their lives, integrity.
did I sell my first to have my first?
a bargain of cancelled reciprocity
or were the reeds not taut
enough?
we cradled his head and feet
and yet the water seeped
into the humidicrib
and dragged him down