Poem: 'SCORPION WIND'

 

SCORPION WIND  

the scorpion wind is past, 

sand drifts street corners in insect sleep, 

the horizon is fly-crawled with smoke, 

but no-one admits to starting the fires 

or hazards reasons for their igniting, 

light from beyond my window is threatening, 

there will be a storm before the day is out 

but inside there’s the same breath-stilled calm, 

I can see a café table in the boulevard where 

two old men and a youth shout at each other dumbly 

over glasses of cheap local wine, smoke gathers 

like birds over the blackened balustrades 

of imploded villas, destroyed buildings that 

conceal scorpions, all else is tactile-calm, 

I watch the youth draw a pistol from his jacket, 

the gun-barrel catches and fragments in the light, 

he threatens the air with vague gestures, 

he is afraid too

Published in:

'OMNIUMGATHUM ANTHOLOGY'

(USA - February 1977)

and my collection:

'WHY-FRONTS'
(Kawabata Press, UK - August 1978)