Banff Grove

It seemed strange,

scattered in fine particles upon

the carpet of my bedroom floor,

the war a distant place far behind.

I looked for a time at the remnants

of my 'banged out boots,'

and reflected; the rifle that

anonymously shoots,

never trained its eye on me,

never claimed the casualty

I was soon to be.

Sat there - but never there,

upon the single bed boasting

an erection for the dame I was

soon to see, the sweat had

never come so fast, never

swamped my skin within discordant

reverie so vast, I shook the flies

from my arse,

my girlfriend beckoning -

naked in absurd ways.

…......My girlfriend, my friendly news,

my homecoming and my lifeline.........

…......an image begs, the sand

before me changes colour red,

a frown begins and my hard-on fades

and intuitively I know;

a year from now, I'd be bagging

this sand in Hessian Sacks,

cowering beneath the window sill,

a forget me not from Kurdistan

by sun shone flowers,

transmitted lovingly to my

parents house.

5000 miles away,

a terraced home on a council

estate in Manchester, seeks

a shiver from a boy age three,

dodging snipers from the flats above,

these the killing fields of a veteran,

no rest despite extraction from

an Iraqi state, regret for having

been set free, to roam like

Idiot, upon Darnhill's streets.

Michael J Waite 0054hrs Thursday 14^th May 2009