Family Values and Other Wars by Robert Staniford

Peaceful Exile

Turning folds of turquoise

let colour fade to purple

pools rippling

shadows strewn with silver

on the moonlit beach.

I let grains of sand flow

through a hand that once held a gun run

through crashing waves that lap –

splash in wet caress, drown

in peaceful night. Sweet respite.

Laughter voices

linger on waves and whispers carry

passion in the wind

while gulls flee to their nests of night flight

arrested by departed light.

Eyes soft with tears see eyes

that reach across the desperate years

and I hear the lilting tones that speak

no more – silenced

in the raging tide of war.

Something More

_____Thoughts,

blur of wondrous imaginings,

eyes wide with want of knowing

_____comfort,

security found in an embrace,

or a game that mother plays that

whiles away the morning.

Scalextric wheels spin

through a mental maze,

no boundaries uncovered

in childhood days;

_____ideas leap and propel

into eternal expectation.

Each day is its own forever;

unspoken understandings,

_____no untruths,

_____nothing crushes

the cozy cocoon of childhood.

_____Darkness

infiltrates the passages of thought,

_____realization;

love has an end, earth gods lie

goddesses

and gods part,

_____security dies

while a small boy plays

with toy cars on the patio.

_____Flowers

wilt in the rain that washes away

_____family.

_____Tears,

eyes red with need of understanding,

mother and father needed

_____as an item not a choice.

Raindrops, teardrops, toy cars;

_____cotton wool memories a

glance through the patio door,

_____to the broken goddess,

_____in need of the god

always wanting

something

more.