NUCLEAR MEMORIES

NUCLEAR  MEMORIES

The last man
acrylic paint on canvas by Robert Margetts

A child of seventy walks in death’s sands

looking far off and remembering distant lands

and memories cry inside his aching head

as our hungry God cries tears of red

Footprints in the sand, telling stores of past.

Waves cut in and shape new memories

carrying old feelings into the night.

Each footprint leads him one step into the future.

Each wave leaves him one memory into the past.

And he remembers a time when men cried into the wind

and children prayed to the only God of the night.

It was a time when the strong could stop and listen.

They had lived in a time, a time untold

few questions were asked and no lies were given,

thus they survived.

But those footprints have long washed away

and time is tomorrow’s past

as darkness drips its acid nails into the flesh of a child.

Its cries suffocated in yesterday’s pollution.

The hatred of an angle burns eyes of red

as the child of seventy wall’s into the night,

wishing he were dead!