Light and Shade

Every now and then I write a poem that I really like, but I don't let anyone see it. I sit on it for ages, making changes, letting it rest, coming back and making a few more changes, reverting back to stuff from the original, and so on until I'm so sick of it that I have to let it out.

This poem is one of those. I wrote it when I saw The Hurt Locker, which was ages ago. Here it is, a war poem you can think of as a response to this week's poem of the week.

Light and shade, this heaviness, with the sand and heat

The watchman breaks and hits the first blood

Waiting, watching the time alone, the head-first fall and

Fire, flies and stench clogs up and breathing rasps

Scream not, run not, take not, move not, breach the barrier

Into the hole with the coffin I go and look to see the waking night and fight goes on
And I ask no questions, no answers will come.

© Johnny Sharpe 2010