Sunday 21 November 2010

ON THE GREEN HILLS FAR AWAY

after the rumble in the morning silence
blue heaven became whiter than white
and Ground Zero awhirl like a fairground
ride with flying handcarts and the music
of suffering children screaming
in clouds of dust
as the spirited
winds fuelled
the burning air
and the false
dawn grew
dark prematurely
and they plunged
into the rivers
of the delta
to escape
the fiery
whirlwinds
and the
melting
skin slid off their slimy bodies as
they waited in the ruins of a hospital
until the dust had settled and the war
was over and the spanish bayonets and the
goosefoot and the morning glories bolted from the
wreckage and the grass on the hills grew tall and lush and green
gw2010


6 comments:

  1. Guernica?

    A very powerful image; and the change of colour works too as does the shape.

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  2. Hello Dominic,
    it can be anywhere you like, Bahgdad, Guernica, Nagasaki, Dresden ... you name it.
    I was recently watching a docu film about dust devils on Mars, the planet of the God of war, and somehow it all came together.
    Many thanks,
    Gwilym

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  3. ps-
    The other thing is I've also started reading 'War with Newts'

    :)
    gwilym

    ReplyDelete
  4. GORDON,
    my sincere and humble apologies for calling you DOMINIC. Whatever the devil came over me?
    GWILYM

    ReplyDelete
  5. I've been singing a lot of my anti-war tunes during my gigs this month, and so I've been appreciating your recent poems. The visual for "On the Green Hills... " adds incredible power to the poem.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Mike,
    thanks and much good luck with your gigs.
    Today I went to see Franz Grillparzer's play 'The Jewess from Toledo' - it's set in the year 1200-and-something and the background is basically the preparations for one of the Crusades and the consequent conflicts, rivalry and jealousy that exists between the Big-3 religions. And I can tell you Mike it's now 800 years laterand as far as 'peace on earth and goodwill to all men' goes, nothing much has changed.

    ReplyDelete

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