"pock" poems
who lit the candles
placed so eloquently
behind purple rock?
that sculpted radiance
and chapel grace
wound in a chosen
defined way
down the spiral
stone stairs
street cars dawdle
alongside
the packer slew
biding merchants
shuffle their wares
as the front man
and pock face
sing their sullen
holy blues
cut jazz echoes
over the accompanying
gabble and drone
incense and haze
pour from
a lower trap door
sack fish, truffles
and splendid crafts shine
inside the stained glass fronts
a wide mouth snapper
with a bloated tongue
greets the
morning tide
(not camera shy
in the least!)
the fish traps
and beaneries
bring life
to the flourishing causeway
hula hoops
and circle ballers
join the
cobaine stage
favoured rogues
and mac jacks
speak easy
of the big daddy
beth’s triple by pass
taking firm hold on
tricky ****
and the nutcracker
maze ways,
taggers and
lost tunnels
of cu chi
strike a
nerving blow
a poised finger man
belts out his tune
(with a sniff sock
and iterating glare)
his nosey neighbors
cut artisan bread
(with a white wine
and jelly spread)
midwives push forward
for an afternoon
toddle and stroll
Jan 19, 2018
Jan 19, 2018 at 11:12 AM UTC
. . . . . . . . .
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
what about the gull
with a wayward splash
or the balanced blend
of cirrus and ash
foghorns throw
the pock wave
sewell stragglers
and bonny boats
earn their keep
Jan 26, 2017
Jan 26, 2017 at 12:35 AM UTC
It is snowing and death bugs me
as stubborn as insomnia.
The fierce bubbles of chalk,
the little white lesions
settle on the street outside.
It is snowing and the ninety
year old woman who was combing
out her long white wraith hair
is gone, embalmed even now,
even tonight her arms are smooth
muskets at her side and nothing
issues from her but her last word - "Oh." Surprised by death.
It is snowing. Paper spots
are falling from the punch.
Hello? Mrs. Death is here!
She suffers according to the digits
of my hate. I hear the filaments
of alabaster. I would lie down
with them and lift my madness
off like a wig. I would lie
outside in a room of wool
and let the snow cover me.
Paris white or flake white
or argentine, all in the washbasin
of my mouth, calling, "Oh."
I am empty. I am witless.
Death is here. There is no
other settlement. Snow!
See the mark, the pock, the pock!
Meanwhile you pour tea
with your handsome gentle hands.
Then you deliberately take your
forefinger and point it at my temple,
saying, "You suicide *****
I'd like to take a corkscrew
and ***** out all your brains
and you'd never be back ever."
And I close my eyes over the steaming
tea and see God opening His teeth.
"Oh." He says.
I see the child in me writing, "Oh."
Oh, my dear, not why.
3.9k
A bag of potatoes and a baseball bat.
Is merely a sack of starchy vegetables and a sculpted metal stick.
But on this blustering evening a bag of potatoes and a baseball bat meant an infinity more than that.
In this fleeting moment, I felt solidarity with the fact that life doesn't make sense.
I looked at you in your adjacent flesh ridden essence and smiled at this opportunity to connect.
The bat clashing with the pock eyed potato skin.
Our existences colliding with ebb and flow of a maniac pulsation.
This is not merely a hackneyed show of baseball bat on a bag of potatoes.
This is a boy and a girl realizing that this ever sacred moment holds more gravity than merely a bag of potatoes and a baseball bat.
It's just that we can't conjure what makes it so rich and ever splendid... so thus it must be
rich and ever splendid as the potato is launched into flight igniting the curiously enraptured mind of boy and girl witnessing baseball bat on potato
Dec 17, 2016
Dec 17, 2016 at 2:28 AM UTC
How far would you travel from where you were born?
She spends more on her dogs in one week,
Than the government provides for those in trouble.
She’s a naturally happy person.
The mottled concrete walls of the council block she’s moved in to,
Complement her pock-marked, pink skin.
For a rich person,
She’s ugly.
The doors to buildings are painted bright colours,
-blues and greens-
And stand out against the brown stone that is everywhere.
Kevin is a mousey young man with stringy brown hair,
Recovering from drugs,
And she thinks he looks like a very nice man.
They are playing football on cement outside,
-plants are expensive-
Now talking over vegetables, around a table,
About the young mothers who will be coming in to learn,
How to grow turnips -
Like growing confidence, they’ll be told.
Did you know that people move to Dundee from Warsaw?
Makes you wonder what Warsaw is like-
-who’s fault it is that people can’t eat alcohol-
She’s hanging knickers out to dry and telling me that she’s discovered,
She doesn’t need all the shoes that she has,
And would it do if she were to donate,
A hundred and fifty thousand pounds?
They smile when they receive their checks.
Their blue doors fly open,
And when they say thank you, they mean it,
The money is enough.
Round the back,
The husband is in tears.
Jul 20, 2012
Jul 20, 2012 at 4:51 PM UTC
Rapid Eye Movements
cruise down the Autobahn,
driving dreams of soldiers
slaying the Beast in the East:
seeds hidden in the cuff links
that return home for the victory parade.
The victory parade of the new millennium
is a mirage: desert sand creeps
through the streets of Basra;
spray painted slogans of “Aryan Nation”
are left behind on pock-marked walls.
High level terror alerts
scroll across the Fear o' Dome,
breeding paranoid glances
from commercial-class passengers
while they fly above fenced camps
where centralized secret service agents
watch the unloading of another train.
"Son, do you forget the sacrifices?
Have you lost all your respect?
Okay, it’s possible that the Feds
were influenced by the Purebreds—
a minor repercussion
of maintaining our national security.
It isn’t even about racial purity—
you are all mixed now, anyway.
Whether female, black, jew, or gay,
we must unite together as a nation;
raise its flag with pride,
and fight against a common enemy!
This enemy is trying to disintegrate
the cornerstone of our free society!
Son, can you not see! Not see-notsee-notsea-notsi-notzi-natzi-nazi-natzi-notzi-notsi-notsea-notsee-not see!"
_____
—cold sweat.
I awaken to remnants of nightmarish images
sifting through my mind:
flocks of carnivorous sheep
with invisible shepherds.
The dream had felt real—
solid, like flesh-out reality.
I rush out of bed,
just to make sure.
From my bedroom window,
I see the neighbour’s Iron Eagle weathervane
goose-stepping towards the west.
A lawnmower growls in the background.
Everything appears normal here
on the corner of 4th Reichstag Blvd.
2016 Neu Berlin Remix, July 13th, 2016
(original version was written on March 29th, 2010)
Apr 1, 2010
Apr 1, 2010 at 6:14 PM UTC
(stopping here to tell you about my first
******* because it was terrible &
the one thing I remember most vividly,
a pock under her left eye
marking my shame & confusion &
this portion of the poem is a lie)
Nov 30, 2014
Nov 30, 2014 at 7:40 PM UTC
I've changed
You've changed
Remember when
duck duck goose
made sense
Giggling bubblely laughter
was all that mattered
Redlight
123
Greenlight
Tag you're it
Ring around the Rosies
Pockets full of posies
Remember it;
I've changed
You've changed
Life threw us ashes
Ashes ashes
123 Greenlight
Didn't see it coming
yellow
quickly
turned red
Ashes ashes
I can feel myself lifted
flying in the air
Your feet tucked into my belly
Your hands holding my hands
Remember that;
Miss Mary Mat Matt Mat
All dressed in black black black
With silver buttons
heading to a funeral home
That's what's she was doing
but it's not
exactly
how the children's song
goes huh
Remember when;
We'd stand in front of the mirror
****** Mary
****** Mary
****** oooooo don't say it**
I liked it best when
we played
ding **** ditch
Ashes ashes
life's ashes swirling
grey dark hazy
Smokey mist glimpses
as my mind races
Glittered pieces
Like a kaleidoscope
fading in and out
Making funny shapes & faces
Faces with no name
whom I've known
when life was simpler
Ring around the Rosies
Pockets full of posies
Posies ; deep pock marks
Scares an unnamed souls
from crashing though
a car's windshield
***She wanted to text
she'd be home soon***
123 Greenlight
yellow
quickly
turned red
Ashes ashes
I've changed
You've changed
Remember when
Being young & irresponsible was seemingly
our job
We didn't have to worry or wonder
Remember when;
Tag you're it
Ashes ashes
I changed
You changed
&
We All Fall Down!
Copyright ©
Ayeshah K.C.L.N
1977-Present
All right reserved
Dec 15, 2015
Dec 15, 2015 at 5:00 AM UTC
So come everybody throw ya hands
In the air for me
If y'all feelin this jubilee
O yea so lets get back to the actions
Satisfaction
Of celebrities got ya main attraction
No actin I'm packing
Gats to baseball bats and who dat?
Call me poetry wack splat
Goes through ya back bullet hole
Filljn those
Empty spots ya can't touc what's hot
I got reps like birdie
Above the rim lace blunt with traces
Of v slims
Who can stop me if my potency
Is near infinite
I'm embedded in ya melon eternally
Too cool for y'all to see I be
With this jubilee a juvenile
Born in the wild never smiled as child
All I wanted was a few toys from micky ds
Could barely afford cheese
Make tracks sneeze when I breath
Got thick chicks from here all the way to Belize
Please don't be ignorant
Just throw ya hands up to this anthem
Ya can't phantom
The jubilee is slammin-
Come on
Not that the time is right
Refocused my sight the black knight
Knocking outsights now ya braille as **** for trynA **** with
The m o b s t e r ghetto star
All hands on the r
Ruger luger quick to shoot ya scoop ya
Out of the scene like ice cream
One man team
Don't need a **** near friend in need
Please believe
I got backups like traffic
Hit the skins is automatic cuz static
To radio station they hate me
Cuz I don't participate in ********
I'm concerned with
These ***** *** punks running politics
Donald Trump I gotta automatic thAt loves to dump
Throw his *** in the trunk
Puff skunks I'm slammin on the gas
Like an alley oopp dunk full of *****
Dikes to lesbians all want a piece of me
I ain't cocky but stocky like Rocky
Picket pock me ill find thee
Restin peace to my enemies
That couldn't get to me
I'm hater proof so y'all just throw ya hands in the air for me
And represent this jubilee ahh. Come on
Jun 15, 2016
Jun 15, 2016 at 12:01 PM UTC
The bicycles were a forged parent-permission slip
But well-forged.
I lifted myself over the tear in the truck's seat cover, not sliding
Not perforating further for today.
The road was short, short enough to have ridden the bicycles from first start to real start.
But that would not have been exotic
Connection is exotic, and channels must be followed through an antfarm
Proper etiquette must be observed with touch-me-nots
The bicycles were easier to lift from the bed with two
I gave him that, passing a front end, and jammed the wheelspokes with a jabbed finger
So that the damp spinning would not flick his face with groundwater
I expected it to hurt. My expectation tapped lightly.
That narrow pock-marked blacktop was my windtunnel
The air stroked its thumbs over my eyelids and I ached to push, breathe, push further
He held me back with his slow handlebars,
His slow kickstand clicking.
Pedaling slowly is more difficult than flying.
One finds gladness in choosing leaves to crunch with an inch-wide tire
And high-fiving low-hanging branches is socially satisfying.
He smiles behind the white mustache, and I don't mind.
Sep 14, 2014
Sep 14, 2014 at 11:17 PM UTC
You’re your own idea
written in blood and electricity.
You’re Pulcinella. You’re judy.
You’re someone else’s description
of light
imagined alive.
You’re temporary.
You’re the dream in a Jivaro head.
There’s the ceiling of a skull
just above your clouds
and even further out
there's another.
You’re pock-marked, wood-wormed
with thoughts,
words,
that you’ve been taught
on you, like tattoos
and shared birthmarks.
You’re picture-framed
in my eye sockets
flipped and made
understandable
and only some of you
oozes
through
like the sun
below the surface of the sea.
You’re me
and i’m you
swirling in each other’s boundaries
like the Tao and oily water
and the point between the colours in rainbows.
You’re infinite to mayflies.
You’re an explosion’s leftovers.
You died last time I saw you
and reformed in the doorframe
when I came around again.
You’re the world’s re-used love letter
from ****** to organised organism
incubated in original sin
the kiln
making Russian dolls from living things.
You’re the seed of a ghost.
You only existed since this morning
and yesterday’s you woke up
and is now out haunting.
You’re both here, and there, and here
a string vibrating
a seismograph
a tree ring
Earth’s music
playing
and playing
and playing.
Mar 6, 2016
Mar 6, 2016 at 1:40 PM UTC
Tall, slender
Silhouetted against the sky
Rustled by a light breeze
Green fronds wave
At Mina birds swooping by.
Mina bird, Mina bird
What do you see,
Perched up on top of
That tall palm tree?
Slender, strong
Swaying in the breeze
Little songbirds find food
In the pock-marked, gray trunk
Of the tall palm trees.
Oh, what made those marks
So many, and deep
Into which tasty bugs
Like to creep?
Strong, flexible
With a heavy top
From which coconuts
With smiling faces
Like to drop.
Plop! Plop! Plop!
Watch your head!
Sir Isaac Newton
Would be dead.
May 14, 2011
May 14, 2011 at 10:40 PM UTC
The army had revolted and the Republic was at risk,
But we were just a small town- what had we to do with this?
My father, Manuel Robles, was a labor Union man.
Some called him a Communist; only now I understand.
The army had a list of men whose loyalty was suspect
And when the civil war broke out they came for them direct.
They took him, and some others, and lined them up against a wall.
It was then I heard the volley and I watched my Father fall.
They checked upon their handiwork, I cannot forget the face
Of the officer who used his pistol to give the coup de grace.
The piled the corpses on their truck and, laughing, drove away.
All were buried in a common grave to wait the Judgement day.
I stared in speechless horror at the blood soaked, thirsty ground
and at the pock marks in that wall caused by some misspent rounds.
There was no judge, no jury, no verdict, nor decree.
They killed a dozen unarmed men ; that was their victory
They slaughtered my dear padre without a second thought.
I would not go so easily; there are others, too, who fought.
Now Franco has my country and I’ve had to flee from Spain.
My heart is with my Father’s bones. I carry on his name.
Aug 10, 2018
Aug 10, 2018 at 11:09 PM UTC
a girl found a crown on the street
clink, clank, and rolling to her feet
cold gold touched her pinkish toes-
during inspection the jewels bit her nose
she wore it all day long, in strength
found her chores list lessen in length
people blinded by it's brilliant glint
it gleamed eyes away, replaced the print
each precious stone reworked memories
envious green glass once enemies
now pink, mirrored, singular, hers
to match the crown, she wore silver furs
her cloak dragged upon the ground
other children picked it up, and found
themselves wrapped inside and gone
the village became smaller, the cloak became long
the elders dug deep at the edge of their home
while the girl was away, living alone
they discovered bones, gnawed to stumps
bugs and beetles, full, in mounds and humps
they fit the girl's old clothes perfectly
renewed dead flesh, but hurtfully
her eyes were gone, the crown's centrepiece
the flesh left again, puddled their knees
the girl had died and was eaten, long ago
it took some time, they cried, but now we know
the metal melted her fat and skin and sinew
pock-marked her bones, rotted right through
replaced a monster with her spirit, living dead
used her soul as the cloak's first thread
vacuumed others, knitted them close and thick
a pretty trinket turned poisonous trick
the elders chased the monster away
along with their children, that day
they cried and created new children, then
never let them wander again.
Nov 27, 2015
Nov 27, 2015 at 10:44 AM UTC
we sit here
wandering, pondering,
quandring
away the life.
awaiting the flood of
the Universal Ocean
to fill lungs of carbon
with sodium -
salinity in the tissue rising.
we sit here
awaiting Lot's wife,
to be pillar'd in a sense -
to be brined from the soul out.
we sit here
awaiting to be marbled and
pock'd with time,
to rest upon the Ocean's bed
and dream in lucidity -
and dream of the Shores.
and awaken of the Shores.
and feast of the Shores.
we sit here
awaiting in waste, in haste,
in repetition that our feet draw us upon.
we sit here awaiting,
healing of wounds thru time -
and the brambles wrapped tight
and tore of the flesh,
poxing.
limping, hobbling, waltzing on
and a blooded foot drew us home -
drew us onward.
Oct 27, 2012
Oct 27, 2012 at 4:35 PM UTC
All the world's a *********
And all the lads and ladettes mere defecators,
Gratifying oozing exits and entrances;
And one man perforce enacts too many roles,
His acts being seven deaths. D'abord, the baby,
******** and ******* on his mummy's frock.
Then, the errant truant with his rucksack
And pock-marked wanker's face, creeping like death
Foul-trouser'dly to school. Next a teenager,
Panting like mad dog, with an oozing pustule
Dripping oe'r his girlfriend's pubics. Then a hoodie,
Full of strange oaths, and dressed up like a freak,
Lacking in honour, decency, and up for aggro,
Seeking the respect of loathsome peers
Even on the street corner. And then the adult
With bulging beer belly, and ample burgers stuff'd,
With eyes dulled by unfulfilled promises,
Mortgaged to the hilt, and indebted to Visa,
And so he wastes his life. The sixth age dawns
Before he knows it, bald futility,
With ****** in pocket, five quid a pill,
His youthful hopes well fuck'd, the world too much
For his ignorance, and his vain butch rantings
Reverting soon to teenage curses, coughs
And tobacco'd wheezings. Last we see him,
Ending a pointless and useless existence,
Clutching to his piss-stained Zimmer frame,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans pension fund.
Mar 23, 2015
Mar 23, 2015 at 4:54 PM UTC
Before a Creole love call, and a curdled Cajun moon
the bay water laps about pierrot, bay grass, and wading egret knuckle
Treading through his mucky labyrinthine mistress, and wind-knitted mire
beak prods pock, and inundate in the same instant
silt gilds his bill as he finally snaps about scaly sustenance
Sated
Wings boom and beckon in the darkness
Lift
Scooped in pearl beam, he commands the aeriform
An ether opus bellows about his form
Drying silt disintegrates from aerodynamic bill
Dribbling about in a forgotten slant in the darkness
Jan 26, 2014
Jan 26, 2014 at 8:32 PM UTC
My face breaks the sea
wash, wash over me.
An army stands guard
led by lotions and creams
What, is my beauty?
Pock-marks scar my moon tonight,
the emotions on my pock face fight.
But my faults dissolve with the sea.
Wash, wash over me.
Aug 2, 2010
Aug 2, 2010 at 9:55 AM UTC
sometimes
mistakes are forever
and regret is the undercoat
that primes your life
perhaps foolishly
it might seem calmer
(karma)
on the surface
to forget the original dream
than to colour it over with
shades of new intention
when all you want to do
is bleed the red out of your eyes
until the copper rusts your face
and runs finally clear;
a dried salty ash,
the only pock-marked
stain on your ****** canvas
the minimalist collector
your highest bidder
Jul 15, 2015
Jul 15, 2015 at 6:07 AM UTC
Face like a road map. Pock marks like valleys and the little blue vein by your nose like a river rampantly running down through the mountain of your defined cheek bone. Face like a night sky. Freckles like one million diamonds flecked across a porcelain night sky. Two crystal clear blue eyes like full moons reflecting on an untouched lake in the middle of July. Face like a razor blade. The edges of your jaw line so straight and sharp and defined they cut through the flesh with the pointed tip of your chin. Cutting the pads of women's fingers as they trace the delicate lines leaving faint pink traces of their D-N-A. Face like a Brillo pad. Face like a baby bear cub. Fuzzy and innocent in its nature to be nurtured in the way of the world. Like the framed moment of a woolly caterpillar being cradled by a toddler in the backyard on a fall afternoon in a pile of leaves freshly raked. Face like an anatomically correct hear. That ruptures and burst with each glance at beauty only to reanimate itself for the very idea of said beauty being some sort of purity. Some sort of saving grace. Re-iginiting in crater of eye sockets like coals that become diamonds under the pressure to cry. Face. Face like hands that hold mine firmly. Face. Like. F-A-C-E. Face like my person.
*Prompt from poem by Dorianne Laux
Nov 18, 2013
Nov 18, 2013 at 2:49 PM UTC
My memories are alphebetized and filed in steel cabinets
But at least I've never paid taxes.
These tracks rack my heavy head,
And with consistancy of lose lead I find I make my bed
Eastward and upward and moving forward feels back asswards
And not only have my once-loved-ones forgot their own adivce...
They let street rats dine, dash and flash feces like crack rocks.
School of the soft-knox they bare qualities close to the itch of a chicken pock.
Rockin' failure in the lines on their faces, I've placed this between I and U,
These steel tracks rack, my, how the time does fly when
You've never paid taxes.
And I'm dusting off files close forgotten,
Tucking rotten ones behind other cold cases
Using laughter to mock roofed and mute traces of
Never more and here we go again.
But if only! If only the woodpecker croaked!
Jokes pried from pedestals marked "short lived" -
Six suicides long and my hometowns *** is wound so tight
It actually drops diamonds. of course in spite of this
The majority spit is ****
Misery takes to masses, foul stench latched, snatched,
Roofed and mute and at least I've never paid taxes.
(Written 3/12)
Jun 10, 2012
Jun 10, 2012 at 10:17 PM UTC
All the color
Stained away
Drained AwayFrom around
My monochromatic core
Becoming an abstract memory
Spreading
In a screaming ,raging silence
All across.....
....This sad and pock marked floor
In shades of grey
I make my way ...past
The last ....ornamental
Bit of sanity
I find..... before
I slip into the mist
Of uninspired ,hard wired
Usurpers....
.....of all
That lay ahead
Where dreams die
As the ordained
Squeeze hard ..then discard
Any evidencerary consideration
Left
Beyond the veil
Of the awaiting mist
Obscurity wilting away
The ubiqitous absence
That latest wisp
Of wide appeal ...for those of us
Who allow ourselves
To be drained of all color
Amid the abstract disregard
Of who we were in our own way
Conceding to become
unhearlded
retreating ghosts
Of monochromatic grey
Unadorned bits of sanity
Saluting as we pass by
On our own ....on our way
Not even credited
With the abstract decor
Left behind us ....
On the now even sadder
Pock marked floor
As it hears the screaming ,raging silence
As it's echo fades away ,lost ,ghostly pale
Absorbed ....
By the grey mist....
..... beyond the awaiting veil !
Aug 6, 2017
Aug 6, 2017 at 5:29 AM UTC
I am pretty sure I should have been born a bug
These eyes have never been good for believing
But these hands
Stretch out like antennae
And will hold heartbeats till people make sense
I have never met a lap that didn’t look comfy
Or shoulders too bony to rest my head on
I have never met a bear
That I didn’t want to hug me
I am so much one man sized
Invasion of privacy
That I hand out **** whistles on first dates
Not that I’d **** anybody
I just need a painful reminder
Of appropriate distance
Even though
Distance is painful
I mean
I get lonely sometimes
And if you invite me to bed
And don’t ask me for ***
I will skip straight to the cuddles
Till we sweat salty *** puddles
I mean
Goosebumps is the human kinda Braille
For hold me
I know that
Because
I can read your skin with my fingertips
Every chill
Every pock mark
And scar
Has a translation
And If I were a louse
Or a flea
Or a lone cricket
Chirping cuddle-bug morse code
In the silence of your naptime
I’d take the time
To translate the language of your body
All you have to do
Is hold me
Nov 21, 2011
Nov 21, 2011 at 11:30 PM UTC
the first thing I notice is the jetty
the waves littered with little feet and bouncing foam and
bobbing buoys of women, two of which
call me to remove my boots
and let water lick clean
old clammy toes
but I walk out on the jetty
past the rock where scuttling children fear their mothers will forget them
past the crop of young fishermen, smiling between tides of beer and
counting the fish they have yet to catch by the worms they have
in their new tackle boxes
past an empty can of Budweiser
past an old bucket of bait that even the gulls wont touch
deeper into the bird **** that paints this rock thumb
pock marked with bowls of orange soup-
carapace and minnow bones
denying a smoke in favor of the ocean’s oyster breath
trading the cooling molten gold of a California beach
for something I was sure would only be found
where this putrid jetty purged into the sea
and I was close
even as you drove me home
I couldn’t forgive you for following me there
Dec 13, 2011
Dec 13, 2011 at 6:27 AM UTC
In Neverland - never to grow old
never to marry that sweetheart
never to have children and grandchildren
nor watch hair thin and grey.
Full of derring-do - more dash than discipline
lanky and loose-limbed they swank and saunter
not like soldiers at all
no doff the cap humility
to the old rules and distant monarchies.
From a newly stolen world
hardly secured or steady with itself
lodged on the edge of a vast continent
clinging to a rim of turquoise blue.
Now cramped
in the pock-holed sores of ancient lands
richly bone-dusted from time to time.
Waiting for the fight to end
to go ‘back home’ ‘over there’
to farms and factories; schools and stations.
Still there - left behind
in the archipelago of cemeteries
as far as Fromelles, Pozieres,
to Bullencourt and Paschendaele
in fields of beetroot and corn,
fields bleeding red with poppies
beside the Menin Road at Ypres
in bluebelled woods of Verdun
in the silt of the Somme
on the plains of Flanders
in the victory graves at Amiens
Monash’s boys - the lost boys
cried for their mothers
begged for water
screamed to die
hung like khaki bundles on the wire.
Commanded by Field Marshalls
who never went to the fields,
who played the numbers game
in a war of bluff and bluster,
who never touched the dirt and slime,
nor waded through the ****** slush
of broken men and boys,
never waist-deep in mud and sinking,
wounded and drowning in that shambles of a war
Wearing dead men’s boots
and shrapnel-holed helmets
tunics and leggings splattered and rotting
with dead men’s blood and brains
Some haunted boys came home
knapsacks full of secret pictures,
old rusty tins crammed with suffering
breast pockets held their grief
wrapped in shroud-shreds.
They brought their duckboard demons
to the world of peace
Gas-choked fretful lungs still brought
the caustic fumes with every breath exhaled
and from every pore the death-sweat of decay.
But most boys were lost boys
lost forever in that no-man’s land
that Neverland of lives unlived.
© M.L.Emmett
Nov 10, 2015
Nov 10, 2015 at 12:32 PM UTC