An elderly lady was losing her mind.
If that wasn't bad enough
the Russians invaded her homeland.
Her family dragged her
from
bomb shelter
to
bomb shelter
depending upon where the limbs and screams were scattered.
She couldn't comprehend
the carved-out stares
skinny ghosts in skinny doorways
or a broken stairway
searching for a way out.
She became disoriented and extremely agitated
but so did those that still had their minds intact.
War had shifted everything onto the same twisted track.
When it is too late
When I was twelve I lived at a farm milking and looking after cows, but a war had ended and the impression it made stayed with me and nothing could change the imprint of my mind
I lived a good life herding sheep and milking cows and my best friend was a little horse called Dolly and she loved me, she never had a foal, and in her mind, I was
a good substitute mind, I spent hours brushing her and trimming her horse mane
Idyllic, wasn't it? Worth writing poetry about the bumble bees and hens finding worms in the dark soil
Despite this, I missed my old life the fear the uncertainty
of sitting in a bomb shelter, the one under the schoolhouse
listening to the worried voices of the adults, waking up going back to our flat where my mother's brother had secured a loaf and margarine and the happiness the meager offering brought, it was all too late I had been conditioned to a life where tomorrow is not an extension of today. I left the secure life.
From a life of turmoil to the risk of violence by the mob in the knowledge that my mother loved me, for this, a son can endure the hard time.
We should do something Professor Hoose Gooser said.
Of course this was years ago, today this old coot is dead.
It is too late now said the new believers. We will be boiled alive.
You are all crazy said the ignorant. They numbered a million and five.
Climate change is a myth, the Redowner Drippers replied.
Okay agreed the Sniff Puckers, but our relatives are boiled alive.
Fake news! Screamed the Hillbillingers. Shut up you dumb clucks.
We were irritated now, especially my scientific Uncles, the Chucks.
Should we build a bomb shelter underground? People would ask.
This was done in the fifties and it was a most arduous task.
Professor Hoose Gooser appeared to me in a dream the very next day.
It is too late, he told me. Grab your ankles, jump off a cliff and just pray.
One flight of steps down
you can smell it
the putrid odour of urine
your eyes must adjust to the darkness
then you hear it
in the distance
Clunk, thud, Clunk
the sound of metal on stone
followed by loud swears
Funk, thud, Funk
closer now
Then you see him
a begrimed creature
Hobbling on a crutch
propping his metal leg,
lost in the war
War
had broken him,
physically
furrowed pain upon his face
he still rues his lost foot
People call him “Footroo”
Cause he hops like one
he spends his days underground
away from the nastiness
new enemies abound
Peace (huh)
had shattered him,
mentally.
This is his bomb-shelter now…
The perception
I was two years old sat in the bomb shelter in the basement of an old school
when I became aware of myself.
I looked at my hands, knowing what I did now I would remember the rest of my life.
Above us, English bombers circled they were trying to find the airport,
which was occupied by the German army,
The bombers did not find the airport but dropped bombs anyway before returning home
hit a school, a fish factory and some houses.
I looked at my hands again I had a will could use in my struggle
in the world of adults, the liberty of my thought made me feel jubilant
but also, a bit frightening because from this moment I was responsible
for my action.
What I fear is old age is it going to rob me of awareness
of what I´m and what I was.
The Tale of the Liverpool Blitz
Mill Road Hospital took a Direct Hit
On the Maternity Ward indiscriminately killing Pregnant Women and new-born children
Reduced the City , Docks and Quarter's to smouldering ashes
Blew the Malachant into a Billion
Shrapnel pieces the quake could be
heard over 3 miles away
We even lost a National Treasure in
the form of Mary Lawson because she
never returned to the Bomb Shelter
Left countless homeless
But far more curse
Left thousands of Families bereft and bereaved
Yet the question still persists
Why help in the form of the R.A.F
Never Came
There's facts and small truths and jokes about life,
Canned laughter and the occasional song.
And there's always argued political opinions,
From big to small, right and wrong.
The guests talk, on topic, of their own field,
Never deviating from what's in their head.
And I listen and think and ponder and learn,
On the informative ideas that are said.
Of course there's the occasional crazy guest,
Living underground in the housed up bomb shelter.
Believing world war three but forgetting air conditioning,
So freezing in winter, then in summer they swelter.
And the ads, the commercials of modern,
Selling things to folks on the go.
It's our weekend airwaves filled full to the top,
It's our local radio show.
PEDARIST
Why am I so flippant yet complacent?
Hypocritical Martyr
Torture chamber – secret sub-basement
Bomb shelter Pedophile aquarium
Abducted children raped half-dead
Migraines and Menstruating
Horrible highway ambiance
Static from a radio unaware
Of our new piece of world, our breath of new air
Almost caught so only kill their daughters instead
A farm for inbred rapists and prepubescence
Shattered psyche of victims to share
Till they pile into a mass grave dead.
And the blood from evil hands now to rinse.
Resent this road leading to nowhere.
We are part of
one endless journey
Journey of discovery of
our earth
We make an impression
on mother earth
Plants seeds
to heal
Children's laughter dies
Children eyes in grief
The human footprint
Alone in a bomb shelter
in grief and bitter anguish
Weapons in small hands
Bombs from adult males
Dead bodies
The hunger
Wounds that bleed
blood dries on the ground
Silence penetrating voice
The screams choking
Human dignity
we thought we were free
Free to what ....
Fight and kill
Destroy the Earth
31.07.2014
A-L Andresen :)
Copyright © All Rights Reserved
Freedom Loving Cowboy
At the bar, by the docks, I spoke to a man who wore a cowboy
hat and had a pearl handle revolver in his holster. A thud and
the pretend cowboy hit the floor and the barman ducked behind
his counter. It was an exploding tire; relieved laughter which
the same when we sat in the bomb shelter and a plane overhead
dropped its load in parts of town where local Nazis´ lived.
Terror begets terror and becomes a psychosis, what we don´t
understand becomes terror and we have to arm ourselves and not
ask tedious questions. I was offered a job at this vibrant place, but
declined feared the undelaying panic, that often explodes into
violence, would get me, I would buy a gun hide it at the top of
the wardrobe and when bad people broke in, rush upstairs, find it,
nervously load it spill bullets on the floor – reload- shoot myself in
the foot. The man, in the cowboy hat, had just told me he lived in
the freest county in the world.
once when the world was young and made sense
Back then when sense was so real and solid
Before green waves that hid the sky and shuddered feet
Well after the candle lit bomb shelter westerns
And ineffectual caning for honor's defense
When devious means became commonplace
To deal with intellectual incompetence
It may have been when learning to enter with the jews
Thus avoiding the first half hour of assembly
And allowing time to do the last night's homework
Skills honed to perfection that made insane navy life easier
The trick was and is knowing when and when not
Without this knowledge trust evaporates in karma's winds
But with constant care comes a freer more independent life
And satisfaction of having had more precious time
With finer responsible friends
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