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Simon Royall

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The Light

Pallid young man, never so pallid before, who
was keeping for thumbtacks and briars the blood
that flash-floods off you now - clots in the rubble -
do not imagine there’s light to come into.

Don’t see its rays, clear of dust, magically as
bombs have sent particle swarms flying up;
don’t see it cure each tender grimace now
hung above you, the last of friendship,

don’t feel it close up your wounds
and lift you out whole. Shun it, young man,
and if you can keep your grip on the stinking
violated earth, not be pulled from the felled

masonry, or out of your jacket where blood
darkens, like censor’s ink on your letters,
if you can end here, too soon and utterly,
for all to see, an intolerable atrocity,

then Time might shake with your dying shiver,
and in war-rooms not yet furnished, numbers
will fall from blackboards; from memorials
unraised, all the million names spill free.

 

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