PALE RIDER

We live in uneasy times.
Wars, both great and small, dominate the news with alarming frequency.
Increasingly, it seems inevitable that the use of nuclear weapons will cease to be the exclusive prerogative of the so-called Super-Powers.
Warfare, by its very nature, escalates and mutates, and terrorism has removed the necessity to travel to a war-zone to become part of the conflict.
Be patient and war will come to you.   

FOURTH HORSEMAN

  

Summer in a sunlit garden:
cloudless sky, exquisite bird-song,
Earl Grey tea, young children playing
and a yellow hammock swaying.

Water cascades from a fountain:
half a million shining droplets
like the notes of gentle music
that caress us from French-windows.

An adagio by Mozart, you say,
and I trust your judgement.
There is not a man more trusting
than the one you call your husband.

All I wish is our contentment,
the well-being of our children
and a future spread before us
like an endless, flawless carpet.

There is nothing to concern us,
far from urban tribulation
in our haven of rich acres,
with security and fencing.

Why then suddenly, disquiet,
as, abruptly, bird-song ceases
and the sun appears to shimmer,
slipping fleetingly from focus ?

Why are bat and ball abandoned
as the children freeze like statues?
Why do you stand there, bewildered,
as your phone rings out unanswered?

Why no sound though you are screaming?
Why now do the saucers tremble
and the burning skies resemble
something that resembles nothing?