AP

BOSNIA

Death comes open-handed
(And always even-handed).
All contributions gratefully received
From anyone, everyone
And even from those
Who have no choice.
He walked through the smoking shell of Sarajevo.
Crossed the broken bridge at Mostar
And stopped to trample Tusla
Gorazde, Banja Luka, Zenica.
Collecting his treasures
To bury them where
Space and ground permitted.
If only the hatred
Had been buried
Before Death came
And made him bankrupt.

BSE

Hey diddle diddle,
The cat's on the fiddle
And the cow's got BSE -
He jumped over the moon!
The little dog,
Laughed to see such fun.
(So typical of his uncaring,
Selfish generation).
And the dish?
You'll never guess-
Ran away with the spoon,
And left behind
A devastated knife and fork.

DISASTER

The hush-hush of the lapping sea
Sounds a rhythm
That sends sleep under the pages
Of the Daily Mail.
The eyes slowly shut in the shade,
The body lies limp in the deck-chair,
The ears close to the noise
Of Radio One,
Or the child of two
And the screaming laughter of three
Others discovering what sand is for.
The senses fade.
The bare feet are washed
By the creeping cold sea
That came this way
Twelve hours ago.
Suddenly, newspaper distress flags
Are unfurled as a long cry echoes
Across the deserted beach.
 The apprentice Canute
Splashes to the high dunes.
Radio One gurgles into silence
And a deck-chair
Floats its flat way to the shore.

MOORS

The clouds scraping
The sun off the hills,
Had paled to dullness
The green summer heather.
Now, in this uncertain
And dithering weather,
The rain-loaded clouds,
Disturbed and restless 
 Came towards me.
I closed my eyes
And shut out the wild world,
Prepared to embrace
The sudden cold and wet  
Of a grey, silent shroud.

TEN FOUR RUBBER DUCK, COME BACK!

In the year nineteen ninety-two
The yellow ducks sailed
The restless ocean blue.
Up north by Alaska,
A nod to Nome
On their bobbing adventure
To Japan, "ah so, sayonara".
Thence back to North America.
Here The Titanic watched them
Pass overhead.
They preferred the Pacific,
Three years, here and there,
But mostly there,
Missing their original destination
Sorry Seattle!
The little, brave Chinese ducks
Paced themselves
In their cold leisurely five year paddle
Through cold, slow moving Arctic ice.
Their reward? The Atlantic.
But some tired of the routine,
And maybe bored
Left the others for Europe
And the sensible ones,
Dropped off in Hawaii.
But the determined,
The bleached and battered,
Peking Ducks
Now have New England in sight
Looking forward to a decent hot bath,
But not with children, not yet anyway.

All poems and photographs [unless otherwise acknowledged] 
 © Bryce Cooke  All rights reserved

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