LOVE BOMB
Watercolour, The Pram, courtesy of Avril Paton
I watch the family push a pram
Down where the sandy shore meets sea,
Letting wee waves lap the wheels
To gently lull their babe to sleep.
Do they not see the ripple of waves
Belch from skulking submarines?
Black bomb barrels on manoevres,
Periscope peeps of evil Nessies
Murky monsters of the deep.
Could they be living in a house
Beside hills stashed with nuclear weapons?
Taking their weans paddling an guddling
By a crumbling nuclear power station?
While city folk sleep in their beds
Oblivious to the rumbling convoys
Of deadly weapons sneaked by night.
What aggressor inflicts this blight on
Our bonnie west coast Riviera?
Happy occasions, laughter, memories
Were snatched from future generations,
Commandeered not volunteered.
At one time families scrimped and saved
Worked half to death just to be able
To take the weans doon the watter
At Glesga Fair - away from all the toil and fug
To fresh clean air and silky waters
On the beautiful Firth of Clyde.
This paradise was seized and trashed,
Poisoned with their nuclear crap
For glory of a dying Empire,
For crowing of self-serving toffs
Swaggering through Westminster halls
Safe and sound from a nuclear arsenal
Dumped with no consideration
Of consequences on population.
Scots’ lives in peril for their defences.
Yet job loss threats were all it took
To keep this family’s votes pro-nuke.
Lorry photo courtesy of Pexels
Mairi Jack is a former journalist and teacher who lives in Glasgow. After too many years steeped in shorthand and academia she now finds happiness in creative writing.
Her work is included in the Edwin Morgan Centenary Collection, Pendemic and Ungagged.
She has recently had both prose and poetry published in new anthology Words from Battlefield, published by Seahorse Publications
To learn more about Mairi Jack please visit her Facebook page:
