Operation Enduring -

Once in a while, it rains. And it rains hard.
A dislocated pictogram remains of the past:
the shafts of broken glass, the wedding ring picked
from the ash, the rag and bone anatomy that’s
strewn across the street. Under the tin shell of a bunker,
the people stuttered to defeat whilst waiting out the storm,
watching as the debris of their lives is sunk into the sands
of Helmand province. A man laid waste land.

This is home, someone says of a lean-to:
a couple of knotted sheets and the smell of old blood.
Next door houses heartache, Hell.
There’s an open wound in the concrete
where it’s been beaten back into a gaping,
a hunger. The children linger round the rim
like restless spirits; red-eyed, bent-backed, thin;
their skin scarred and puckered by the indents
of a rib cage, the shards of shoulder blades.
The throb of leaden hearts. This is a place

where the sky closes over heads
and mountains, sealing secrets; the broken
teeth and bones. Where a legion of poppies
raise their opiate eyes, open-mouthed at how
quickly the children can find themselves lost,
unborn.

Here and there, a stack of rubble slumps
like a charnel house or a cairn of cold stones,
which must leave them something like a sickness
for home.

* * *

My entry for Penessence's contest Afghanistan: The Pity of War.

Finally, something new. The process of writing this took several days, and even now I'm not sure it's quite as I want it to be. War poetry is not really my area, so I did a bit of research into the genre. I found some wonderful examples here, if anyone's interested.


Oh, and some more good news! Recently my poem .vesta was awarded a Daily Deviation over on dA. This is a pretty big thing for me, since it's an award I've wanted ever since I first joined dA (which is over four years ago now, eek!), so I'm super happy. :)

And do you remember that piece I wrote a while ago, Dog Days? Well, I won first place in The Flame(s) contest!