Two Poems by Lynda Tavakoli

 

WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?

When you sleep, do you think of them in your dreams?

I do wonder about that. And I think it must be easier

to partner the devil than to sift through lies

that burn and scald and break the rest of us.

I pity you.

For while the rising souls of Gazan dead

find peace in martyrdom, you will face the sentence

of your own deliverer; past deeds forever rotting

in an unforgiving coffin of your inhumanity.

THIS DECENT LIFE

My pheasants have a life,

a decent life,

their thirsts satisfied

with a single swallow,

their hunger soothed

by offerings of easy kindliness.

Easy kindliness, and the knowing

that decency does not always afford

safe passage, even for a simple bird.

Her shredded body lay on the field,

a spill of fresh silage

sprinkled over her like buckshot -

a foot missing, innards laid bare

by the cut of the blades

and a freckling of feathers

peeled from their pink bones -

still warm as she was lifted.

I buried the pieces of her

in a place her friends might know,

her lost presence new to them

in the aftermath. A decent burial.

But what to say about so small a thing,

these words about a bird and not a bird

no solace to the left behind,

no succour to the suffering,

no answer to the never-ending pain of war.

Lynda Tavakoli lives in County Down, Northern Ireland, where she facilitates an adult creative writing class and is a tutor for the Seamus Heaney Award for schools.

A poet, novelist and freelance journalist, Lynda’s writings have been published in the UK, Ireland, the US and the Middle East, with Farsi and Spanish translations. She has been winner of both poetry and short story prizes in Listowel, The Westival International Poetry Prize and runner- up in The Blackwater International Poetry Competition and Roscommon Poetry Competition.

Her poems have also appeared in The Irish Times, New Irish Writing. Lynda’s debut poetry collection, ‘The Boiling Point for Jam’ is published by Arlen House and includes these three poems about the different aspects of war.