Lament Poem by Brian Hairbottle

My poems
are frozen moments
Captured, scrawled on cigarette boxes
in stray moments

Do not expect
rich fantasies to lull you asleep
l cannot burble on, lace my lines
With sweet flowers and proud eagles soaring

Rhodesia has bled
and gone
I give you
Bravery, honesty and loving enduring

Women weeping
over 'Regret to announce '
sharp rifle fire lacing a commentary
on young lives

The troopies twisted gut feeling
as the chopper drops him in
The (doubts, the fears
the twisted truths

Passed off as news
the bestial urge
Which lurks within us all
Walk the fields of war
with me, with people

Blown in the winds of change
Read our story caught
in word woven nets.