Saxby Pridmore: Three Poems

Alfred Nobel Strasse

The men who dropped the bomb in

Alfred Nobel Strasse, south of Bonn

are dead (of anti-aircraft fire and time)

that killed a man just now.

They’d send flowers to his wife

if they knew and could. But

he wasn’t born when they did their thing

so, how could they know now?

He was digging with a digger

and didn’t know their bomb was there

or what happened next, on the street

named for the man who invented dynamite.

It was nothing personal, is the best that can be said

but his children disagree.

The estate of war extends in space and time

with compounding interest.

Saxby Pridmore

Harrington Richardson

Thunder from his gun

Sent a leaping hare

Spinning in the air.

He broke it. Smoke wisp with

The sting of fire-crackers

And lob-bobbed a new load in.

There was no knife.

Sandpaper fingers

Ripped the skin and belly open.

Holding the head and back legs

A single wobble-board flick sent

The guts into the grass.

He pushed one ear up inside his belt

And knotted them on top.

Now there was one each side.

He had them facing out, so

His trousers wouldn’t get grubby.

He was your grandfather.

Saxby Pridmore

Us

Let us escape together

from this point and time.

There’s food in the cupboard

just toss some in a back-pack

and let’s go together.

There must be more to life than plenty.

Saxby Pridmore