AIRFIELD, CASTLE CAMPS
Skylarks unreel their tinkling
ticker tape above the concrete
fractured street - a flight off
English ground, the green
silence, into the inhuman
vacancies - we live amongst
militant song, shrapnel
proliferates - nebulous
corals, nurses of flintstone
unfurl their barbarous flags,
projectiles seed the un-
appropriated air - the sea
whitens with dust, blackboard
chalk of a diagram in the
powdered skull of a spitfire pilot.
Cameron Hawke Smith
APOCALYPSE
Tired of man‘s misdemeanours,
one afternoon,
God switched off the gravity.
The effect at first was gentle -
a slight shifting of the heels,
imbalance.
Then a clutching at things,
tables, chairs, possessions.
Kitchen curtains tugged upwards
like flighty girls lifting their skirts.
Heavier objects began to rise.
An aluminium saucepan struck me on the shin.
I grabbed it for a helmet,
snatched a straining hearthrug,
to wind tightly round my calves, clawed myself down from the ceiling.
A neighbour tapped high on the pane,
naked at 3pm.
Help us! Help us! he mouthed.
My wife floated past him in a scarlet dressing gown.
I let her go.
Angela Pickering