Grandad
Back from Burma, Big Man, Bear,
saunters through the door.
Teeth on parade, hair gleaming with Brylcreem,
dumps his kit bag at the threshold,
sweeps her up again, this time for keeps.
In the hall, Samurai sword;
token from a corpse,
the man who shot his best pal.
He'll give it to his mother
But she'll sell it in his absence
Like that's enough to make it disappear
War
Like a fetid souvenir,
green, rotten egg,
kept in the dark
War
Carried in his pocket, even at night,
shown to strangers, to the nurses,
shared with fellow collectors.
Treasured like a putrid faberge egg
encrusted with misdeeds
enclosing murder and a justification.
War
Passed round at parties
Fondled over supper
Preened in the car
War
Dressed up for kiddies
With lewd fragments omitted
Because sex is worse than butchery
War
With the stench of old water seeping through the dark
With a sob that mumbles in the silence
Like a fetid egg from a dark place
That begs for forgiveness
And can never be discarded.
1 comments:
A strong one Vicky.
WAR IS A PUTRID FABERGE EGG. I wonder what Lakoff and Johnson would make of that metaphor?
Ash
Post a Comment