Rainbow?s End

Between tea and an early night
The TV relayed your plight.
Part pulled the rug
From beneath my complacency.
And blind to the desert of your lives
The romantic in me
Saw something in you
Straight from Paradjanov.
A florid tableau.
What's wrong?
Were the monastery bells
Insufficient
To keep you at home?

But all the orchard apples have spoiled.
So down from Carpathia
You lug your weight west.
To stake out your dreams
On a stranger's shore
Those obstinate doors.

Over the channel
Under a northern sun
Callous eyes spied you out
Not exactly welcome!
Pasty fingers pointing
Sized up the leeches
For latter day Nosferatu
"Go home - Don't you see
The blood bank's closed!"

So that now
In the high rise cell
Don't you ever wonder
Behind stoic mutters
You may have swapped
One weary ordeal
For another?

Fifteen pounds pay
For a twelve hour day.
How the crock of gold
Turned; revealed its true face
This empty bowl.