I left with a bag of dreams
and a heart full of hope.
The roads were wide
but none felt like home.
I spoke in borrowed voices
slept under unfamiliar skies.
Smiled through winters
that never thawed my bones.
But something kept pulling
a voice, a scent, a song.
A name I once answered to
still waiting where I belong.
Now I return, not empty
but carrying what I’ve become.
Not to start again
but to finally come home.
Ukrainian Cemeteries
David J Walker
Strange are the faces of
The new Ukraine
Stranger still Mother Russian sons
Leaves of Lilies
And dipodies
Scattered on grounds of repatriation
Peace be unto your
Brothers in death
A price purchased
With a final breath
As unknown boots
Above the ground
Unfurl the flags of
Silent sound
To claim what’s lost
An loose what’s found
In the subtle slopes
of the Ukraine
9 Nanos Off
David J Walker
Are you feeling grey or green
unnamed
unforeseen
Missionaries calling daily as the
Positionairies of repatriation
of stolen identification
of silent salutation
confessing unspoken temptation
and now you know
you know
you are
alone
at home
a part
of everything
a part of
nothingness
loneliness
motherless
lost in
the lost land of
the dark nowhere
in the light of everywhere
awareness
might bring
enlightenment
this time
Count the Nanos one more time
Coming back home on a repatriation flight
Overwhelmed by the shield and double masks blurring my sight
Making my way home to escape the blight
I could not wait to feel the warmth of my tropical sunlight
Never was I so happy as when we landed on the site
Glad to be home but on the plane we had to sit tight
Because quarantine forms had to be filled out right
And Covid-19 tests results had to be presented in black and white
Captain and hostesses were flexing their might
Keeping us in plane prison way into the night
Hating to wait I began to indite
Of how coming back home was such a huge plight
Making travel plans now no longer a delight
Everything now high-jacked in this pandemic fight
Seeing through showering mist-
Golden clouds sucking nectar
And slowly gliding away
Placing a kiss of confidence and poise
On the glossy cheeks of mountain dear
Before repatriation
Of the sun
With a wish
To see the offspring the next year.
All vegetation in apprehension
Of many season’s separation
Have withering begun,
Shedding frozen tears
From multitude leaf-eyes
Before the final adieu.
Birds from the distance horizon
Assembled to greet
In multitude hue and sound
At the return journey to north
Amidst tormenting bawl.
The sun at end of south journey
Leaves stealthily
Covered in the veil of multitude cloud.
Greenslopes
Greenslopes Army hospital was ,
For the returned soldiers cos,
They needed repatriation,
For war causes sickness of,
BEWARE
Bronco-Don was there again,
Suffering trauma and the pain,
Till a scan was sought because,
THEY
Put his head in a vice like grip,
Said it wouldn’t hurt a bit
Pumped in dye, bad hurt, Tom-Twit,
But Johnson didn’t cry,
THEY
Took his head out of the stocks,
HE
Grabbed the specialist by his frock,
Strangled him right to the floor,
“you said it wouldn’t hurt for sure?”
near death came as a shock,
for doctor macintosh,
bad Johnson evermore,
his bloody lot,
the score,
SOMETIMES THE BLOOD GETS HOT,
You bastards know whaffor….
Don Johnson
"Let's share together my friend, the bread of life.
We are all slaves in this nice land.
Let's all work together for eternity,
till we earn, one by one
the ticket to return there, from that where we came...
To the country of liberty."
Copyright Constantinos Grigoriadis © All rights reserved
My eyes scan the telegraph wires from station to station,
Drink the bleeding sundown in a thirst for information,
Search the grainy distance for some glimpse of destination,
And close against the fear of love in earnest trepidation.
I feel the worry smite my bones with sickly dislocation,
Twist the sinews viciously and howl in consternation,
Pull the protein particles from blood of my salvation,
And crush my heart defiantly in jaws of desolation.
I shovel dirt upon the past and curse it's ruination,
Once buried it still rises with renewed annihilation,
And thus parades it's cruelty at every new location,
And drains the life right out of me with power drill damnation.
Please comprehend that I am weak from such exsanguination
And patiently abide with me through self repatriation,
For I can tell you honestly with little contemplation,
You, my single saviour, my truest adoration.
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