A.S. Morgan
Aberystwyth, 2005, At the War Memorial
many times the faltering sun ignites
on pieces swept together
resounding and impure:
there is no virginal silence
in the fast beginnings of war.
light rushes
to fill distant pockets of air and skin
a whirling locomotion
turbid and whistling
each train arriving is a wash of blood
and oil
and air is pumice
a fading chalk
of misdemeanors.
smallness
rogue warmth
waves cushioning blood
and fear and sweat
before the white strike
powdered scream of breaking glass
everywhere a body lies scattered.
blind we become
shining and silently benign
kindness perpetrated without cause
the ocean is washed in hazards
painted on the face of peace.
makers we, without
true compass points
a sliding famine of seagulls
and the wind a tomb
the silence and the grey.