Thursday 9 March 2017

Worm

Crawling under the tank treads
Under the quaking earth –
A worm, of no importance
Not even enough to be noticed
When it is crushed

As oil and metal, ripped from the earth
Made into a mountain on the move
Run over the earth they were part of once,

Spouting smoke and explosive death
And the worm can do nothing.

Nothing?

There is a mother’s tears, a father’s anger
There is a broken house under a towering wall
A broken house and a lost hope,
There is a sister dead in the gutter.

And the worm shall rise
With stone in hand against the metal mountain
The worm shall rise
As fires burn the sky
The worm shall rise, the worm shall be crushed

Today.

Tomorrow, and a further tomorrow will pass away.
And the mountain will rust and fall silent,
The towering wall will crumble away.

And it will be time for the worm to feast.

Then no sister shall die in the gutter
And no mother weep.


Copyright B Purkayastha 2017




1 comment:

  1. Great poem.

    We haven't had great war poems in English since WWI, when we had a lot of great ones. But this is up there with the best of the WWI war poems.

    MichaelWme

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