Ukraine Bayonets | Linda Chown

Rhyme Ukraine

Will it be rhyme which makes
Us feel the dark blood spread
Will images stop up our eyes to see surely the cut
     and the pain
Must we hear screaming first
and get our pretty houses out of the picture so that we stop squat in the middle of devastation 

Try imagining your first nightmare when you
     couldn’t get out 
when you saw your mother covered in blood far far away 
from away from you
Try imagining that time you broke your leg in the snow and could not stand to balance your body on.
Take your pretty house out of the picture and imagine a sledge of devastation silence and distraction. Peoples bones sticking out of their legs. Teeth dragon and
     thing-like broken.

---

Bayonets in Bayonne

This is not for sweetness. 
It is apples and oranges. 
Breath goes beyond itself breathing. 
Life a glimmer of no chance 
as cough consumes the air.
Porcupines peeve the light with their stickers. 
The chances of later 
Melt into blue marble.
The sweet Bayonne coast overwhelmed 
by bayonets fervent
in indiscriminate attack

---

©2023 Linda Chown
All rights reserved

---

---

---