A circle of dull light
The musky smell of old rubber
Encroaching darkness of a cement pipe
Made worse by breathing through a heavy filter
Just crawl forward
Afterwards my arm was blown off–pretend
From all the children my sister was chosen
To stop me from dying–pretend
I always wondered
Was it just our school
Because of the military
Stationed here for over 300 years?
Online I found other schools did the same
With cut-out paper dolls
My school made us into toy soldiers
Original footage on grainy film
Piles and piles of corpses
They showed us
Age 7–or thereabouts
I understood then
that humanity as whole is evil
And now the evil rises again
The prince of the world
His biggest con
Are rumours of freedom
All the while planting poisonous apples
Words you must not use
(If you want research funding)
The prince plucks a juicy apple
And hands it to the humble
Christian praying in their home
Woman
Woman is the word thou shall not use
And so they fail
One after another before the 40 days were over
Woman
Becomes damned once more
Tag: Iron Curtain
Behind the Iron Curtain
I used the first line of Carol Ann Duffy’s poem “Litany” shared in her poetry course on BBC Maestro as a starter for this experimentation:
“The soundtrack then” were silences,
Where urges to shush in company.
There were two lives lived:
One public—government approved,
One private—with a hint of danger.
Critical thought was prudent.
Animadversion was foolish;
Subject to the listener.
I was planning suicide,
At the age of ten.
Wonder why?
Our teacher said the whole class is planned for.
We are to spend the rest of our lives
At the conveyor belt,
In the tire factory.
Mind, people find solace in rhythm.
The undiagnosed highly gifted ADHD brain
Planned a different career that day.
One that would end with a knife.
I remember that night,
After school,
In darkness,
Laying still,
Making arrangements,
Resolving to wait,
Until we would reach
That bridge to cross.
Luckily the Iron Curtain fell not long after.
And the knife remained a cooking utensil.
Poetry by Nathalie 