(the end)

the end

a river full of dead pigs

                  a burning moon

                  a child shitting in mud

was that it then, just that ?

                  no trace of birth

                  or a cold tuber that might

seek helplessly your hands

                  wet with drops from a rusty tap

                  fingernails dark and underlined

that follow the trace of a fleeing star

                  an escape into the big black

                  over the wall, over the wall.

Reviews

[AYVID N]

Vivid images of helpless, hopeless destruction.
The poem is all about when hope, warmth and light flies off into nowhere and death strikes with full effect.

Just superbly told. My compliments!

[gabrielle]

This is a very haunting read. I could not just imagine myself in a situation so bleak and hopeless. A dark write yet wonderfully penned.

[Ken Simm.]

A song almost like a Coronach sung for the dead and then no more. Superb writing.

[John Alexander McFadyen]

A dark but eloquent poem Leslie. Death is such an empty place.

[John]

There's a starkness to the image that opens the poem that suggests a pretty hopeless scenario, a landscape ravaged by war with its victims trying to eke out an existence. The cold tuber that a child might take hold of could be a dead root plant unable to provide sustenance. The mind baulks at this harsh reality, and seeks escape through a flight of the imagination, but the repeated 'over the wall' suggests that such an attempt is doomed to failure.