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Poems from Bridges, by Anni Wilton-Jones |
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Open-Cast |
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Do they count us with the sheep |
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on this hillside, this doomed hillside, |
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huddled together in distress, |
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wool pulled over our eyes ? |
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Like sheep, yes, we know fear — |
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fear of disease, deprivation, destruction, |
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fear of change. |
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Like sheep, yes, we know the cause — |
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Man. |
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Grasping, groping, greedy Man, |
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stabbing, wrenching, tearing |
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the life from the sheep, |
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the life from our home, this hillside. |
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When the ravaging wreckers |
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perform their ritual sacrifice, |
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with sacred, ferrous teeth, |
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ripping the entrails from the black-veined victim, |
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we shall read our future |
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in the asthma dust. |
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The sheep will move to pastures |
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less destructive, less destroyed |
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but we shall stay, |
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trapped by our humanity, |
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trapped in the homes we cannot leave, |
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that no-one wants, |
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that protect us from the rain |
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yet expose us to the dust, dirt, |
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din |
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disease |
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Death ? |
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Life Scrapes |
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Life scrapes its nails |
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on the blackboard |
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sets its teeth on edge |
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I curl my mind |
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round my ears |
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to close them |
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leave my essays |
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my in-depth studies |
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my assignments |
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to write themselves |
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sit in the resource centre |
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of the sofa |
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and read |
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about murder |
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Two Haikus |
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I |
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Cats slink in the shade |
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of sleeping cows shrouding roads. |
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Night is a dog’s bark. |
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II |
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Soft silk tracery |
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kissing my lips with the wisp |
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of your desertion. |
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