Looking out on the old estate
seems nothing here has changed:
Needlework, fine tapestries
of battles way back - when?
Do they tell of hopeless friends
- more casualties of war
Than raw recruits whose minds are shot
- of bastards on the take,
Of strychnine, vim, of fake
and passing happiness, but really just escape
From mundane lives and pointless jobs
(for those with jobs to hate)
And ten-year-olds with grown-up words
whose headaches smell of glue,
And mates of mine with shattered glass for guns instead of words.