Refuge

Poem by Roger Iredale

The queen my mother taught me
how to lead her people out of danger
when I had fifteen years and only
thoughts of life and love.

One night, years on, suddenly we
paused beside the columns of the ocean,
waves decapitated over killing fields
of foam and rock and wind.

The designated boat wrenched at its tether,
spill water slushed gunwales reflecting
faces of the yet undead clutched with
panic over rusted, shaken rails.

Desert gone, the broken tinged sun
behind us, and the lingerers no longer
countrywomen, and the lost no longer
friends, we’d conquered death.

And did this sea have edges, did
it circle endlessly, salt as figs
fit for fish alone, brooding only
on the fate of dinosaurs and us?

The mafiosi, leering at the greenish
slime of dollars, conjured wonderlands
of peace and honey, comradely
vicious in their threats of pain.

We take their boat and promises,
fight off rollers, reach God’s shore,
a refuge built of skeletons and shards,
this template for a promised land.

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Comments

Thank you for this poem . I particularly admired the shape of the last few stanzas . I think the Friend chose a very good picture to go with it ,which , for me, added something . Good wishes .

By Neil M on 23rd August 2022 - 15:49

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