Just another day

Six sparrows sit atop a thick leaved bush,

like beige feathery candles on a Christmas  tree.  

Frozen to the spot I look at them 

as heads on one side they stare at me, 

neither haughty nor curious.

Until as if summoned by a soft far off bell 

they rise up over black iron spiked railings,

and wheel into the haze of a pallid noonday sun.

Up on the green along the edge of the cliff

a herring gull dances, stamping his feet

in ever turning circles, a winged Dervish

not whirling but tottering in the wet grass.

Greedy eyes gleaming, his beak stabs down

as the worms bore up towards the surface,

desperate to escape the mimetic flood

orchestrated by this plump Machiavellian bird.

At shoulder height a flock of pigeons flies

along the Promenade, an avian battering ram

of close laid feathers, dun and biscuit,

smoke grey,  bronze and iridescent blue.

Strong men blanche and leap for safety,

small children run screaming for mother,

while marooned in my wheel chair 

I swear at today’s inexorable pinioned progress.

The air is full of the shrill agonised screams 

of green parakeets hanging down side up 

from swaying wires and sharp edged guttering, 

and the hysterical barking of dogs 

ever eager to join the hilarious melée.

Only the black disdainful Promenade Cat,

whiskers quivering and anxious bushy tail twitching, 

abandons the affray for a quiet cushion and a piscine tea.

Just another ordinary December day 

in the long life of our genteel old seaside town

                                               Naomi                      

A Perilous Path

A perilous pathway

Look into the blue waters of the Med where sharks

and poisonous fishes swim, where black sea urchins

lurk and jellyfish sting the unwary travellers on their

perilous path south from Maghreb to Mezzogiorno.

There you will find a monstrous human graveyard,

for the sea gives not up its dead to the living, 

and already countless thousand souls are lost 

to the T ocean,  prey of avarice which fed

on the fears of terror stricken refugees who had

nowhere else to hide and no place else to go.

‘Rescue them?’ our leaders cried, ‘Even more 

will come, and of those who come, even more 

will die; we must not facilitate yet more deaths.’

But can we ever trust the sweet voiced serpent,

whose sharp fangs administer a deadly venom?

These are our brothers and our sisters who rest

deep beneath the smiling waves, supine on biers 

of rock and sand, where many more will gather

destroyed by the smug complacent righteousness 

of those now committed to abandon them.

There can be no resolution, no peace, until we

ourselves identify with fugitives and outcasts,

with children who are hungry, and mothers 

persecuted for their faith.  For are we not all

children beloved of the loving creator God?

Jesus said make the stranger welcome in your

home, and show love, not hate, to your enemies.

Thus our hope is founded upon the love of God 

made manifest in the life of Jesus, and in the love

we have for one another.    Amen,  so may it be.

            

                                                                         Naomi

Paul Nash : 4 Dark landscapes

“The Caterpillar Crater” 1917

South east of Ypres, the Caterpillar Ridge,

blown up by thirty tons of ammatol,

a thousand Germans dead but disappeared,

only a massive crater to mark their passing.

Green fields turned ochre by blood and mud,

every tree a broken trunk, every branch

a stunted limb, like a human body 

torn apart by unceasing heavy guns; 

trunks in serried rows, like crucifixes

souvenirs of an army dissolved away.

“Passchendaele Shell bursting” 1918

A man-tree leans back away from the blast, 

its hand with shattered fingers lifted high

against the blitz of brick and piercing shell

flung arching wide, a macabre fountain

sprung from a deep penetration of the earth,

an unholy union of Füllpuver and steel

The sky blotted out, the land is covered

with dirt and debris, trees wasted and bare,

a dark landscape broken and desolate,

reveal the artist’s unending despair.

“The Wire”  1918

Beneath a sky wide pall of noxious fumes 

stands erect a lonely bridegroom, a tree

castrated, splintered phallus wrapped 

in a deadly mantle woven from thick 

strands of entangled wire, barbs hungry 

for blood, symbols of pain and of despair.

Roots spread dry, like a beached octopus

trapped by broken boulders and foul waters,

the tree is captive to this killing ground,

left god-forsaken in its Stygian gloom. 

“We are Making a New World”  1918

Above the brick red, blood red horizon
the sun rises, enervated and white,

into a sky grey with shame, but its rays

touch the edges of the brightly dark hills

and highlight the forest of wasted trees.

Grass is tinged anew with a nascent light,

from the soft water of a crater pool

field mice drink again, children one day may 

play here, small birds sing again, but for now

nothing but an unresponsive emptiness.

                                                                                                                                                                                                 Naomi


"The Wire" 

[This item is available  to share and reuse under the terms 
of the Imperial War Museum's Non Commercial Licence]

 Paul Nash  1918