War, let’s play war!
They marched home, all the way back
to Talpow Terrace and Rifelman’s Row;
where we now play with their ammo pouches
drawn fast on the high noon of their tallow;
moist with tears dried in the hallways
of the tenements of the speltermen, spitless,
grimed on tongues and metalled to forget.
Slag’s hard eyes, blood let and congealed,
black-hearted, shining in deceit, calling foul
and a twisted ankle of any stride to escape
the dark night of their discomfort.
One might well ask
where are the ghosts? Look around, for
they are here alright; they are here
under the wings on heels of your fright. You
play war, then you will get what you did not
pray for
listen, listen; there, the voices, there the
voices, begging under foreign suns
in foreign tongues for the ultimate.
It’s in the stone walls of the houses,
the tired hearth of frugal suppers,
down all the days of our childhood;
down all the dim alleys of their dotage;
time suspended in the names of the streets.
Trip dark and twisted, with no street lights to
cleave the facade of a child’s dread dream,
with mum nowhere to be seen.
It’s an act of course; it’s all an act.
The street names of the departed,
for the departing, leaving the actors
in an empty auditorium. The soliloquy
of a poet on a misguided tour of the
battlements of the past. Get the bus
out of here lad, for you don’t belong.
You don’t understand.
You don’t belong.
Be gone. Be gone.
For you the war is over.
bravo
ReplyDelete