Gene Barry writes

Bonelocked

For Pasha near Chernobyl 1999

No one has seen the walls

that hover around you,

shields that only land

occasionally in polluted

fields of adulthood,

birthed by deaf ears and

confused and troubled as

your country’s barriers.

Your birth year blew 

you a second violation,

nuclear,

a shock to torture your

family now summoned to

live a querulous-free life.   

Is there a poet of gratitude

lurking in your twisted frame

burying volumes of antiquity;

those beasts that

bite you after binding. 

Is there an Olympian caged

within, breaking ribbon after

ribbon. A podium tenant

riding heroic cantatas.

A screamer without an

audience. Are your trips

as grey as a funeral

procession or as pleasing

as a lap of honour.

Chernobyl -- Raul Gubert

Gene Barry writes

Margo

I wear your love today

Like a Friesian landscape,

No credentials do I exhale

For I long for nothing.

                                               

Dust has not settled

On our distance,

I have forbidden it;

I am drunk on memories of us.

Rapeseed field --  Jentsje Popma

Gene Barry writes

Mother

there is a frozen silence

both sides of our window.

Outside, a white sheet steals

the joy of herbs and plants,

decorates the half-worked

green climbing our un-finished fence.

Three electric poles are alive.

Daffodils are popping through

disliked moss greens,

calves entertain electric fences

and woken tractors are feeding fields.

Inside, a voice is echoing your

granddaughter’s telephoned message,

stilling thoughts, and delivering

the cold news that you have passed.

Landscape with Grave, Coffin, and Owl -- Caspar David Friedrich