The readjustment was the hardest part
Not leaving the war zone
Or coming home back to his country
And to his wife and family and friends
But actually readjusting to the fact
That fact that he had no legs
He left them back in Iraq
Not as a war victim or injury
To a vehicle accident instead
His Hummer left the road and rolled
He was lucky to escape with his live
The medics took him to the hospital
It was touch and go but he made it
The army will pay for his recovery
And give him a pension
Plus a pair of tin legs
And keep him on the books
An advisory role for future wars
He did ok from his accident
But readjusting is still hard
This is his new normal...
Categories:
ridgeway, conflict, military, soldier,
Form: Free verse
Shimmering light
The lily pond
The music of your eye
The touch of your arm
Your always honey smell.
I love.
Rustling trees in a row,
A wide green lawn;
People stoop to see small flowers.
A snail on the path.
The perfecton of the shell.
I believe
Unusually tall dandelions
at the edge of this wood
Wave in the warm west wind.
We smile.
Sitting pen in hand
I wonder what I would have written
In all the letters I've not sent you.
Far away on the Ridgeway,
Cars,seem small as ants,
Rush towards the motorway.
They make us laugh.
How green the meadows are
How fresh the old trees.
I gaze at you.
I find I am.
It's mutual.
I thank you.
Categories:
ridgeway, beauty, happiness, joy, love,
Form: Free verse
The river lazily ran through the lovely pasture scene.
Poets wrote their pretty poems about the river’s charms,
Carrying its living water, reflecting purest green
As lovers sat upon its banks, locked in each other's arms.
Way back in nineteen Eighty Two, idly pleasure boating,
He chanced on unexpected sight of homicidal death.
This man discovered horror beneath the surface floating,
So shocking to his senses that he almost lost his breath.
He’d discovered the first body of victims known to date
Of dread Green River killer, Gary Ridgeway is his name.
Sixteen years to catch him, the murders stand at forty-eight.
With waters tinged with red, the pretty river’s not the same.
Won no. 4 in contest
Categories:
ridgeway, deathriver,
Form: Quatrain
Avebury a Wiltshire village low
To windswept beacon of Ivinghoe.
Eighty-five miles,vale and hill
Wayfare freedoms,exhilarate and thrill.
Striding downs in grassy scrub
Midst trees and clumps of shrub;
Shaded lanes,gates and stiles,
Wayside pubs to rest awhile.
Overton to Wantage plain
Goring and Streatly in the rain;
Chinnor to Bledlow,in freezing chill,
To Buckmoor,Chequers and Coombe Hill.
Wendover to Hastoe through morning dew
Wigginton,Albury onto Beacon view;
Natural history and species now rare,
Time to idle or just stand and stare.
Categories:
ridgeway, places,
Form: Ballad