It’s a retirement haven
for people with money but it works
like a Roach Motel. People move in
but never move out.

You and your wife move in to
a big condo and you’re delighted
by all the amenities.
Golf, tennis, squash,
swimming in an indoor pool,
massage, good meals,
snacks for the asking, new
movies every weekend.

But then you need help
counting your pills and you
move into assisted living while
your wife moves into
a smaller apartment,
hoping to save money.

A year later you have a stroke
and you’re taken by gurney
to another building, the big one
in back of the compound
no one talks about.
It’s skilled nursing there.

Your stay ends when you leave
in a long hearse with your wife
in the front seat while a new couple
moves into one of the condos.
They’re delighted by all the amenities.
Could be the condo you and your wife
moved into when you came here.

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Nothing takes the sting out of fear
death lurking somewhere
a bullet straying somewhere
nothing takes the sting out of fear
stricken in moments when
wind plays devil, and water swirls in mad tempest
nothing takes the sting
fear is a death disaster
fear is a broken shield of a car
fear is the calling of hyenas
and mad dogs
fear is in those atrophied bodies wasted by bullets,
world phenomenon,
how can I encompass fear
with its heavy leaden moments of corrosion, gnarled face, emaciated
children in subtropics?
I had better hold it by a noose, strangulate it, let go its moments,
one by one…

There is a stone staircase in a tower in a cemetery just outside the city.
After the climb up you will look out breathless among the bones and
the flowers.
The wind will feel like hands in your hair, it echoes
with giggles of the dead, divine creatures and monsters.
Don’t be afraid.
Remember you’ve known them, and time will bow its head before you.

Old Cyril with his tales of engines
Ploughing fields and suchlike.
The suns he once knew
The light he had walked along.

Seeds been and gone, flowered
To bread, fed people he did not know.
Wheels taking time with each turn
Under the clouds that quietly gathered.

They sucked up the words he said
Then rained them down on his retirement.
Now he sits with newspaper words
The only conversation he has left.