Forced Dreams

Outside my window falls the night,
rain runs, an owl cries from the treetops,
stops, again a cry across the muddy lawn
and more than eighty dead in Lebanon.
Beirut in flame below its cedar trees,
and like a game the fight goes on. More die
than people are aware in Washington or London.

I think of them between a war and words
and their continuous dying. They reach out
with broken hands, their bloody eyes
are terrified; "we've been left out, here,
in the cold rain, left out to avoid the bombs
and shells. We're left in shame.
Where is our home? Where houses stood
is dust and rubble now.
Do not forget us."

Think. This just happens. Sit back. Mix memory
with discovery and find your own garden
full of the dead, who are like you,
still out for food, a bed. The old and young
with babies, and lovers who just yesterday
were strolling arm in arm, now with torn faces
pressed against your screens. You think.
The rain will wash them out. It won't, it can't.
It is not meant to. You sit, your face pressed
against theirs. Life against death. You have no choice.

The children howl. The babies, with their wounds
still bleeding red show transparent eyelids
over their dead eyeballs! Wind-blown, rain-drenched,
stuck to the glass, their lips are now dead leaves.
Offer them sweets, a featherbed, warm milk!
Their faces have the angel look, the garden
is awash in begging angels. Nothing
could deny them dying. Their eyes insist:
here we are, more real than your trees, your pond,
your trampled rosebushes.

And I say silly things like: you are forced dreams
of my imagination. And they agree.
They do apologise for frightening the dog
and they are leaving now. The dollar falls,
religions boast their creed. And petrol
goes extinct. And still they run their faces,
visceral, as they are, deep down into my eyes.

That is tonight. I see them hold their hands up,
yet again, to keep their skin from falling off the bone.
It is not time yet, but I ask: Who of you said,
is innocent? We all give up. We all.