The apple that survived the fall

Girl left for eight hours in car with murdered family

The Guardian, 7 September 2012

A campsite in the Massif Central.

Mountains whisper with voices of streams.

An amber girl gathers apples in the shade

of gnarled limbs.

Many lie bruised. Her grandmother scrutinizes,

sets them down

like stillborn kittens on the ground.

The amber girl prizes most the apples with leaves,

the ones she believes still alive and becoming trees,

not fooled by the magic of seeds.

Granny furbishes one on her sleeve, eat this one

that survived the fall.

A banderole road

shadows a wind-chime stream,

the engine hums

a lively tune to the pitch and roll

of the mountain’s hem. And then

the music stops

and screaming begins,

windows shattering,

shards, a blizzard

of glass inside the car.

Amber girl dives for cover

beneath her grandmother’s skirts.

Crack of snapping wood,

words not understood,

a smell like bonfire night,

door wrenched, flung wide,

yelling, cracking,

her sister's wordless pleading,

father, mother,

another crack, and another.

A roadside in the Massif Central.

The dead whisper with voices of streams.

An amber girl under canvas in the shade

of gnarled limbs.

(c) 2012 Slush Poet

Voici la différence

François Hollande due to meet the Queen

The Telegraph, 10 July 2012

This is truth,

a passage hung with old masterly proof

of succession, each oil on canvas

upholding this: Elizabeth.

And how the monkey rattles the bones

of his cage, it takes my breath

away. This grand Republican stands

nerved to parlay with hands damp,

sweating her gloved fingertips

being touched to these presidential lips

and remembering to release

my grip. A throne is after all just a seat,

said Bonaparte, but how odd

to be an atheist received by God.

(c) 2012 Slush Poet

In the absence of power

Legoland closes due to power failure

Slough Observer, 6 May 2012

The governments of Greece and France have fallen,

their peoples’ power finally failing them,

the aftershocks are felt far away.

In rural Berkshire, loosened foundations

send flurries of PVC masonry tumbling

from scaled-down totems of national grandeur.

A lame Eiffel Tower leans over like Pisa,

the grinning Acropolis requires a dentist.

But the malls of Paris are already braced

for an upsurge in spending, while Athens

squats and strains over Europe’s face.

Who says turkeys don’t vote for thanksgiving?

(c) 2012 Slush Poet