Aldeburgh

The Bell at Forty: The Destruction of a Village

The past dozes beside me as the ringing does beneath its grandfather bell. And the bitterness follows me, as chicks trail after the mother hen. And the horizon . . . that eyelid tightly shut over the sands and blood – what did it leave you? And, what hope does it hold?

30.8.1988

111

Thrombosis in the Veins of Petroleum

When I was a child I fell into a pit but didn’t die; I sank in a pond when I was young, but did not die; and now, God help us – one of my habits is running into battalions of mines along the border, as my songs