THE CUPBOARD OF THE YESTERDAYS
The War marches
across the map
on little coloured pins
blood red for us &
bright green for them.
The colours faltering
in the candlelight
after the lights
had gone out.
One can still see holes
from the previous War
that pinned men down
so that they
would never move again
they the never returning.
THE CUPBOARD OF THE YESTERDAYS
falling from mother's sleepy hand.
"War is a cruelly destructive thing..."
it both begins & ends.
Men wriggle under
coloured pins & die.
Saki smiles sardonically
from THE TOYS OF PEACE.
I move a pin to where
father maybe is.
I am glad
mother sleeps at last.
In the somewhere of now
a bullet splinters bone
my father falls
the agony of the moment
revealed in the telegram
that will come
a month later.
Father has become
History.
Mother will read her Saki
and cry and try
not to let me see
her cry.
I, a small boy
can't cry.
Death appears
like a fairy story.
What War
awaits me?
Apr 8, 2016
Apr 8, 2016 at 2:38 PM UTC
THE CUPBOARD OF THE YESTERDAYS
The War marches
across the map
on little coloured pins
blood red for us &
bright green for them.
The colours faltering
in the candlelight
after the lights
had gone out.
One can still see holes
from the previous War
that pinned men down
so that they
would never move again
they the never returning.
THE CUPBOARD OF THE YESTERDAYS
falling from mother's sleepy hand.
"War is a cruelly destructive thing..."
it both begins & ends.
Men wriggle under
coloured pins & die.
Saki smiles sardonically
from THE TOYS OF PEACE.
I move a pin to where
father maybe is.
I am glad
mother sleeps at last.
In the somewhere of now
a bullet splinters bone
my father falls
the agony of the moment
revealed in the telegram
that will come
a month later.
Father has become
History.
Mother will read her Saki
and cry and try
not to let me see
her cry.
I, a small boy
can't cry.
Death appears
like a fairy story.
What War
awaits me?
