Exams

Arrivng late at the exam hall, As if getting to a battle spent - After medics had packaged the bodies Rags and tissues and broken bits Remain And time stands, pauses and air Takes stock - deciding what next. The silence almost whispered and echoed Throwing into relief the scratching and tumbling of chairs. Arriving at the exam hall late A window ajar, pivoted idly. Small scrapes of metal and the cooling waft into the empty space. A chair untucked by some Grateful youth into freedom. A picture askew - some uncaring Shoulder barge. Beyond blue walls sounds of play After day And me here, late, alone A fly trapped in amber.

Flowers like Children: Syria 2012

At the time I fussed over flowers;
Some burst open, vibrant red like flame,
like a shower of spray, colours of fecund possibility.

I worried that the lawn grew moss,
that the rain would stamp on the new buds -
When it came - in Grey-booted clouds, kicking violently
At the borders and the shrubs.

I would have to weed, stab and hoe, tie, slice,
dump weeds, struggling for life, into bins;
pull out roots, cut deeply into earth and emerge
muck under finger nails, palms stained with dirt.

The sun lit down and enticed the little ones.
They responded, earth tied but stretching,
And as the purple petals shrivelled I cut them off,
sometimes picking them between my nails, feeling the cool, clammy liquid
and poured them into Compost bins,
sweet smelling, like open fruit Left on hot windowsills.

Meanwhile, in noiseless horror, in muted
Terror a story emerged, shy into the light.

But the world seemed to move on.

Other small mouths stopped, their spray carnation lips,
beheaded.
Small forms in small blankets in rows like sleeping babies swaddled.
One report said the head had been topped like a boiled egg.
Another, asleep save for the cavern of a little half formed skull
Ajar like a neglected doorway.
The flower of three years, hands tied like some threat of rebellion -
as if the tiny nails might scratch a wound:
a lesson to those daring enough to want to talk of choice or poverty.
Innocence in robed white, stained dark black
In pictures grainy with the camera's honest diffidence:
Even too ashamed to reveal the girl's vest "dolly" print
Slashed like tyres, blood dripped and sticky like oil.

Little hands do no harm. Tiny mouths only want to sing,
small flowers are often beaten down by winds and late frosts.
How men can stand and idly watch as youth is
hacked like weeds one by one by one?

Bridging

Bridging the gap, flowing over an under flowing water, spilling, gushing and yawning violence underneath. I prayed the ropes would hold, knew that no one heard: man's faith in things man made. I trod carefully, the wood was wet and slimed to my booted foot turning solid into something rotten, decayed like compost. Above, a hawk took flight and sailed imperiously gathering the wind harvesting each gust with its arc. I'm sure fish navigated lower passageways with finesse in the tumbling brown cold bubbling beneath me, freezing but boiling seeming. Yet here, hands white, grasping, I held the rope, feet seemed like toddlers' brand new walking as my knees tightened and my heart stood still. That's risk and fleeting, that's whole and perfect nearing death was to be alive.

All worlds encompassing.

Still -even after the years
seeming heaped with breaths of love:
I see in her most perfect flowers
On buttercup lawns, fresh from snow.
She is all and everything;
Outside her sphere is nowhere
a desolation of profound longing.
They may travel to lands mined
With diamonds and gold yet
Here shines a beauty untold.
All nature’s glory seems created as
A mirror which can only shine
Back images, not what is real:

"she walks in beauty like the night"
And what nights?

Yet these are only words and visions -
She is: cinnamon sweet and lilac pretty,
Sunset and dusk, she all states is.
Desire is a happy prisoner when it awaits
Pale beauty’s extended hand
So away with fantasies and far off lands.
Here is my compass and here my map.

Breaking up

So, he looked back over the things of their life:
the house, the car, the kitchen appliances and sighed.
It was tough to be open with the blue eyes that
stared
across
the table at him,
there were too many things to say, as if the words were too big, they became tangled and
desufnoc.

He noticed her vulnerability
like a thin
veil
revealing all behind the veneer of pursed lips;
her chest rose too quickly.
He nodded once and she knew it was true.
He stood and walked to the door, turned back to her and nodded,
he noticed now the two tea cups
and the fragile steam that
billowed lightly
from them and he went to speak.
Her head ducked as if to fend off the words
and he halted again, turned finally
and was
gone

She stared back - relieved.

Evening thoughts on a fire

He rolled up a paper and chucked
it, watching the off-white turn
bronze and black and smoke and
leap flames.
In his eyes he saw a past, swirling up
on the ringlets of floating ash:
And this was history, and this was now;
a warm glow soon to be extinct -
a hope soon to be melted
in October's cold, cold showers.
And so can go things:
Friendships, loves and hope.
We all hold and tie the rope.

what thought did

it could never have been known
a sharp space between knowing and not
between the things that minds savour
and things that rock the cores
no one could see it although
the signs had flown for years
no one then
said anything