John Anthony Fingleton writes

A Room Lost to War

This room had not known voices

since the horsemen first appeared,

and the olive trees

were scattered by their storm.

Shuttered windows,

paint flakes tumbling,

siege door -

locked without a key.

Inside the dust of crumbling books,

with dog-eared pages -

mark the only trace of me.

Weathered by winter storms,

that passed unknown outside,

forming grotesque sculptures

in the snow.

an avalanche of marching men,

that stopped but never found;

a sea of different accents –

some with echoes of despair.

Inside the books kept crumbling,

a slow long dusty race –

to see which one of us, would be first to disappear.

 

The City -- Lori Nix