A man drops on the field
Falls like a rock to the dirt
Raises a shout from the enemy and a shout from his friends
Deadweight to the company
They will haul him back to camp
Bury him like a goat by the main road
The funeral will be quiet
Men gathered around a mound
They will smoke cigarettes and forget which way up they put his head
The man in the passing truck will tell the news they are praying to an anthill
Dear readers will scoff and throw their hands up and proclaim
We knew it all along! Lunatics the whole lot a’them!
The boys around the man-mound-anthill will not cry in public
Violence has toughened them into men
Violence has killed their friend
They will cry later
After dinner when the sun sets over the field and they think they won’t be seen
Is it man’s nature to turn boys into mounds
To hide tears from friends
To smoke cigarettes by the dead
Ashes to ashes
Dust to dust
The boy under the anthill
Under the raging sun
Under the cruel eye of god
Man’s nature to wonder
Ashes to ashes
Dust to deadweight

We descend over the city long after nightfall
I look for her eyes in the lights below
I think perhaps I can spot them
                                      if I look closely
I am faster through the airport than the old folks and the children
Watch for my bags with a heart beating through my chest
Smile at the dogs on duty  
And oh what joy
She is not a dream
                                      but flesh and blood and world in a pinpoint
She is just as I have left her
The only soul who has ever been beautiful under fluorescent white
The only soul who has ever drawn joy from me in the airport
And oh what joy
She is not a dream
                                      She is mine

Do you still eat your toast like I do
Around the edges first, until there is only the soft bit in the middle
Do you scan the line for the club
Peer into shop windows, cafe windows, bedroom windows
When you’re falling asleep in the dark do you wonder if you’ll dream of me
Does Bukowski remind you of me
Does Rodriguez
Does your father
Do you still laugh like you did with me
Do you still eat eggs with mayonnaise
Wear stripes and bows and the red canvas trousers
Do you still eat your toast like I do
Around the edges first, until there is only the soft bit in the middle
Do you still eat your toast
The way you consumed me

A flower behind the eye
Roots in the skin
Seeking water not spoiled by sweat and tears
The touch of my lover
The softening of thorns for her handling
The shade of branches for her slumbering
I grow gentle in her arms
Under her gaze
I grow further from the ground
Bloom and flourish and shriek for her
A flower behind the eye
Torn from it roots
Settled in a quiet place
Brushed softly behind her ear

The soldier can not always be fighting
There must have been a time before the fray
When the man’o war was a child running barefoot over land without mines
There must have been time for rest
Time for lunch
Time for bed
The fighting man must still dream at night, of *** and flying and the boogeyman as I do
He must have taken up his own arms
Dressed in his own clothes for the day
Let his own legs carry him eastwards
******* his own head on straight
The man inside the camouflage still combs his hair in the morning
Telephones his mother to ask about the recipe
Tries to lose the last of his gut before summer brings the beach back into popular culture
The soldier too shall die
Die victim and perpetrator and ghost of state sanctioned fury-for-a-cause
Fury-for-a-sons-life, mother dearest
Load him up! Send him off! We shall turn your boy into a man! We shall give him honour! We shall carry his body home from the field on the back of a friend!
The fighting man in his bloodlust
Turns out to be nothing more than any other son
Loaded into a gun
Shot across the field
Into the face of a history who will call him Soldier
Into the face of the mother who will call him Little One at the funeral
Who will wail and weep and tear the flag
The mother of war knows best the sting of the gun
The sting of the soldier in her arms

There is an old man’s walker beside the baby’s pram on the bus
There is something somewhere that is profound in that
I should think of time and cycles and the round about life
Of cradles and coffins
Of metal holding the body
There is a walker beside a pram on the bus
I think of baby shoes
Of my grandmothers slippers
Of my ******* boots  
Of the round about life

Always autumn in me
The plunge to the ground
The pull of the wind
I approach the end as autumn does
Slowly,
                    
                     Lingering in cold mornings

Never winter in me
Never snow or ice
Always only the movement towards
If it is autumn always
There may not be any spring
One cannot be reborn
                     In such a chill as this
There may never be summer
                     In such a wind as this
Autumn in my soul
This movement unto shall be enough for me
                     This movement unto shall be enough for me