Between cable news and the censor
Slip some slivers of gloss
From the Ministry of Defence.
Thus we weigh up the cost of Mickey Mouse
plunder spilled on the Basrah road,
the bones fused to the gutter under
the fired Zeppelin load.
The children sleeping,
I pick up their toys from the floor.
I hear you call from a distant room
But I can’t hear what you’re saying.
Through the days of victory
Cumulus columns spread on sky,
Night fires of history
This tar land, this pyre,
Our small future torched.
Satellites mark the bones, Ragged and scorched,
Photographs in silent homes.
I turn off the light
In the silent house.
Sleep, however fitful,
Is better than some words.
Our bulbs burn round the wells,
Prickling over the gulf between us.
Children pick up shrapnel shells
From the glassy sand, sea-less,
Sky-trodden, jet-deafened.
Later in drugless wards they hollow,
By benches of bereaved and orphaned.
We fight over dust, words, undermining dreams, gulfs.
David Parsons © 2001