Under fire

My first and hopefully only experience of being under fire. This happened when I was living in Angola during the Civil War.

The first shots snapped close, dull, too real.

Explosion wrapped, slow suffocation

and then again, the sharp, muffled thunder

before hell bared shining, shuddering teeth.

Within the instant of death-born life I fell

and slithered like a fleeing snake, for safety.

In deadly song the bullets flew

with words that screamed and thundered.

This song was new, the words unknown and yet

somehow remembered. My mind cleared,

waiting for the time when I could move again.

But in the selfish silence there was no peace.

Moments drawn through endless ages,

dragged me on and yet, I lived within the instant;

It birthed me now and then,

in sudden, writhing dance we took the floor again.

With thump and thud and crack and snap

the song grew loud and fast;

cruel harmony now ruled the world

held captive future, present, past.

Like some amoebic being in murky waters yet

I swam against the fearful tides,

dreamed long of land and light, and

suckled slow and fitfully in deep and muddy depths.

Remembered dreams held out their hands

and turned their skirts to show

that patterned, fading, flash of life

on which my mind must stand.

And when the song was fully sung,

the instruments at peace,

I turned inside myself and saw

Inanna spread;  raw hung.

Upon the sharpened, deadly nail

of darkness was she set;

the mirrored room of memory

held image fast, and yet…

I saw upon a distant wall

another image drawn;

a cup which shivered, glisten-full

to offer hope, fresh-born.

I invite you all to look back to a time where you experienced something for the very first time.
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