Shop windows dazzle in the sun,
attracting tourist moths with money.
They gape and point and squint and pay.

Behind the glass the ugly cuddly
stare back, glare in disgust at the stack
of dazed outsize heads on parade.

Ranks of captured trolls boil with rage,
their destinies - slobbering kids,
hot rooms, pink rabbits, red balloons.
No match for their cool mountain caves.

Beware these creatures of mischief
and fear. They bear malice - kitsch, occult.
Do not mock them. Stick them on your shelves.
They are our other selves.

Visitors pass from empty bed
to empty bed, like Royals,
silently soaking up the dread
atmosphere with remote respect.

Examining clipboard histories,
rehearsing their medical soaps.
Volunteers answer questions,
the front line troops in trying
to raise our war dead back to life.

Have a care John Willie was not
just a private, not a number,
nor a diagnosis. He was
a person and a brave soldier.

Old photos frame soldiers' pains,
they're wearing posterity masks,
hiding feelings and memories
that lurch back again and again.

Someone must suffer to sate
strong will, greed and power lust.
Assuagement doesn't outlast
the pressure of furious rages.

We fear the hand of a ****** or
a Stalin, perhaps some passionate
servant of a cruel god. So we
fight to the death of the innocent.

I saw her stiffen when he knocked.
She'd had a premonition.
In the hall she paused trembling
by his photo on the wall.

Eddie stood at arms length, silent,
stretching out to deliver the brief
tribute of despair. His glance to me, forlorn.
How long before we too must leave for France?

She asks why I don't speak of it.
I will not. It is a lake of blood
of flesh and bones and limbs and stink.
I fear to sink but will not let go.

I am as one with it. there is no me.
So I must guard its dam, stop any leaks,
for a breach would drown us both, leave nothing
but acid bog, infertile, insensate.

She seeks to cure me, to 'get it off my chest'.
There's no rest. The pressure builds and I need ale
to stem the pains and blames she cannot share.

Ten gassed men. Ten gassed men.
They follow blind in single file.
One turns to spew and break the chain
of shouldered hands and splintered minds.

Ten blind men. Ten blind men.
Each marked for sacrifice,
bandaged eyes and mustard faced,
lungs in foamed embrace.

Ten maked men. Ten marked men.
their eyes see what we can't
in Singer Seargeant's paint,
sights rehearsed and cursed.

I'm buying some new old CDs
to remind me of my old young days.
The time of the trad jazz revival
and the stranger shores of Joan Baez.

Tom Lehrer made chemical magic
and poisoned pigeons in the park.
He promised to go with us when we go,
when we half expected nuclear snow.

Those were the days my friend
that came to an end, but like our parents,
we still feel warmth in summer suns
tht glow in memory's furlough.