War Poem

There were no people,
just a bird,
on a black twisted limb
of something once living,
in a sea of northern clay in the rain.

And I watched him sing,
and blink a black eye
to the cold-soaked day
in the chapel of pain.

And his feathers were brown,
like a moths, in a case,
in a box behind glass in an Edwardian town hall,
and my skin was white
like the salt spit sky.

His gaping mouth gasped,
drowning in silence.
My deaf-ears were grasping for a music unheard,
as I blinked a black eye.

There were no people,
just a bird.

© Mark Sheeky. Permission is required for reproduction.