HORSE OF A DIFFERENT COLOUR

Auden & Isherwood
strolling in China

trying to soak up
The War

by the process of
osmosis

staining it
with words

observe
(at first what seems)  

green horses

but turns out to be
only white horses

painted green
for camouflage purposes.

That evening in Canton
also offering them

the futility of two men

trying to put a rat
into a bottle

a woman who lived
in a beehive

pouring water
into a sieve.

War knocks
over the inkwell

spills
into men’s lives

covers the white pages
of their wishes

makes the idea of Hell
...all   too   real.

The spilt ink eating
the words of men

who send letters home
and die in pain

never to return

only in others' memories
& useless dreams

marble memorials

while green horses
champ the grasses

the bridles & the bits
clanking & glinting

in the hot sun
of Now.

as this last lost evening
dies.