Putting these poems up takes me back to their origin, whereby several times they are comments on major news items. This one relates to that genre and deals with an incident at the height of IRA and UK tensions in 1994.
Twenty Nine Lost Souls
Through the murky mists of the Mull Of Kyntyre
the camouflaged chopper charges ahead
into cloud shrouded cliffs, now a funeral pyre
shatters, breaks open, disgorges its dead
of clandestine colonels and cover up cops
bent on conspiracy, subterfuge and plots.
In the battling Belfast backstreet blocks
Where suffering and bloodshed are neighbours
in tenement hide outs the IRA mocks
since this kill wasn't gained of their labours
but still they claim nature their own 'provo' might
like the Pope, religion and historic right.
In their hapless homes those numbed next of kin
watch TV news headlines so blandly advise
twenty nine lost souls now must suffer their sins
incognito, stay secret in nameless demise;
no comfort this text from high lords of the land
"for God, Queen and country", they just don’t understand.
