PTSD

Capture

At the station
There were
Balls of dust
On the edges
Of the tables
The walls were shabby
The floor was dirty

On reception
A barrel chested
Police officer
He seemed to live
On a higher level
He drifted
He stopped and glowed
He moved thinking about something
He turned effortlessly
Into the spiritual
Of his higher world duties

You feared him
Just a little
He was distant
Like a bird
Moving across
Fresh snow
You moved passed him
Like you were passing a giant
In a strange untouchable vision
In another world

Defeat

They land like bombs
From a volcano
Post traumatic
Stress disorders
They
Pom-pom powder
The heart and head
And soak into the body
Like leeches

You become conscious
It’s the day after
You have a bulge
The size of an armored tank
In your chest

You move
With anvils
Either side of your head

You don’t know it
You don’t believe t
You’ve changed
From the smoothie drinker
To the metal black creature
From the lagoon

Hurt
You’ve never felt so hurt
By mankind’s secret weapon
Hate

Death

They lost their lives
In the battle of the bathroom
They were all lined up
On the venetian blind
Like a row
Of horrible little black mice

Then they all flew about
At once, around my bonce
I moved in with the spray
Like a man in a police line

Finger on the trigger
I was man – the killer

Now in the peaceful
Autumn days
I keep finding their bodies
Behind the vases

Zion

By the river Thames
Where I sat down
I began to weep
When I remembered Zion

As the river flowed
Beneath my feet
And the high rise flats
Grasped at heaven

I walk to the edge
And I dived in
The deepest end
Of my prison

And as I drifted
Down to the sea
I found a place
To pray again

Did you know?
That as a kid
I had an invisible
Sister

And mother laughed
Because I cried
When she went away
I missed her

Like sitting down
By the river Thames
And weeping
When I remembered Zion