Seventy Two floors up,

we three watched as the Tsunami

tidal wave rode past

the concrete structure we were hiding in

and we wept for the humanity lost.

 

It was that buffeting of the concrete

or maybe the scream from the young

woman’s mouth, siren like, distilled, vodka alerted,

that woke me up with my nerves trembling

and laying down on the cold

end of days September sofa,

Tsunami sweat lodged in my thin, greying eyebrows.

 

No less disturbing than the time I was forced to watch

as Nazi storm troopers took you away

from my side and grinned as they put a bullet in your head

and as I broke free and started beating up the pillow

I woke just as I heard the click of a small handgun

being pressed against my spine

and the words in German of say goodbye…

 

no less disturbing than the time my brain decided

to entertain the sound of a nuclear wind buffeting

the small caravan I lived in, the metal skin

groaning under the pressure of humanity’s

greatest sin, as all around

decayed and turned to dust in a flash,

I was left on my own, face down

praying for an end that wouldn’t come…

 

I taste it all, I could feel the swell of the Tsunami,

the shadow of the 40 foot wave bearing down,

I could taste the overpowering cologne

hanging in the air that built a wall

between me and my killer as I held

the soldier’s head in one small hand

after having broke his jaw,

I could see the results, I could taste

nothing as all around me

on the Pershore Road crumbled and fused

into nothing…I feel it all

and I know that the end is near

right before I wake up.

 

Ian D. Hall 2015