Despair
Trapped under tons of rock
How did they pass those 17 days,
A brotherhood of men
lost like a child’s shoe in the sand?
Rationing a morsel of food and water
for who knew how long
fate as uncertain as the stale air
and then another seventy days
of darkness and despair.

Freedom
The gradual progress of the drill
and all the careful calculations
before the flimsy cage,  
Encapsulated in a tube of rock,
a miracle of engineering,
determination and daring,
birth canal, difficult and painstaking,
a tunnel towards the light of freedom.

Faith
The prayer of a voice
from the depths of the desert,
A scrap of paper
Waved like a banner of life,
A freed miner kneeling,
resisting  for a moment
the magnet of family.
to give thanks in faith.

Joy*
The raw emotion
ore from the womb of the earth
the intensity of pain and joy
in the faces of the children  
as their fathers returned from the tomb;
a world waiting in the glare of hope
a world for once joined in joy.

Babble of tongues on the beach,

To my right Italian,
I can listen and the lilt admits me
invisibly into their world.


To my left Greek,
Incomprehensible, a barrier with occasional chinks
where I recognise clues.


Behind me English,
Different accents
Allocating places and prejudices.


You change your accent
as your clothes,
casual to be accepted.


For me you put on your finery.
But which is true?
Which is the real you?


I know your tongue
exploring my mouth
caressing my skin.

Narcissus
In love with your own reflection.
Drowning in a pool of tears
Of your own making
Ultimately yours,
Heart-breaking.

How I adored
The image you turned on me,
Burned into my soul.
I knew it wasn’t real,
Yet I yearned to hold once more
The man I saw and loved there.

You bore deep down
Tore holes in the gossamer of my dreams
Whose tattered edges
I still cling to.
The mirror is broken now and its shards
Have turned my heart to ice,

Whilst you continue to shine
Your blinding smile on others
Enticing them to the
filigree web where
They will struggle ensnared as I have done
Smothered, stuck, drugged.

Where I remained,
Pinned back with honey words
and promises that poisoned,
Endearing looks, your searing touch
That fill me still with an image of love
Distorted, toxic.

Two-dimensional, glittering
Hard-edged, lacking depth,
The only image you care for is yours.
Mirrror-man