THE PLACE INSIDE
25.4.05
there is a place inside
where the end exists
in the deep of night
you can get to it
all it is in appearance
is a gaping black hole
a new form of total emptiness
where nothing can live
but that is the place
where the person you are
first put on your face
to become prey to chance
all of your tomorrows
they have nowhere but there
for that place is all
encompassing things everywhere
you can’t get in from outside
but you can feel the doorway
the aching pain makes you bleed
the loneliness will make you cry
there is a place inside
where the end is the beginning
you come from it
you go to it
but only ever in your ending
is there a way inside
CASUALTY
he watched his family slip away
one by one disappearing
the huddled masses
in no man’s land
welcomed him
one of their own people in a dirty war
he walked the streets
at any time of day
watched the soldiers marching through
saw the people go on
into the square
meeting the bullets of the battalion there
on and on they surged into death
because they believed
he crossed the bridge in knee high socks
an old black and white photograph
browned like a soiled memory
etched in his mind
a time when poison came from the sky
pretty packages of death
for the little children
along the leveled city streets
cruised a tank
if anyone in uniform found him
he was just another casualty of war
living day by day
with nothing but a name
the government decided who survived
no one to trust
who may not betray you
even now sitting at home
with his tv buzzing
and his children watching him
hanging on his every word
he is still fighting that battle in his head
whether he lives now or then
he has always been
a casualty of war