I Dream of Returning from an Old-Style War
Seven of us wedged
in a 1930 Austin,
straining round the hairpin,
dust rising on
virgin ghost-grey road.
As we lurched about
the tree-lined way
we saw our womenfolk
huddled where the road ends,
deep in green foliage
in starched white bonnets,
pinafores licking grass.
The car stuttered, stilled,
breathed as we clambered,
tin soldiers to our loves.
Embraces, whirls in peace-numbing
revelry.
All the birds have gone away.
We in couples merged
and bundled, four-legged, back
the way we had come
to the crown
where stood the white cottage
of memories,
whispering smoke-dreams.
Bronze goblins on stoneflags
by the blackframe door
bade us savour soup on the boil;
we smelled it burning through musty
darkness we once knew.
And as in all dreams,
good or bad,
all sounds strangely muted,
scarcely there.
An eerie almost silence.
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