FIRE STARTER

The boy’s hands tremble as he lights a match
under a pile of leaves - smoke rises like a snake
uncoiling from a crackling nest.

An ogre lives in his house,
drinking the family jewels,
stinking of ashes, sinking in a stupor
in front of an empty fire-place.

Far away a bonfire party erupts
with sunflowers and dandelions and tiger-lilies;
he sprints down alley-ways, warming the chill

of the air: a drop of lava from his heart
grows into a firebird.

The junk in the backyard
is his bronze chariot, its rusty wheels
enflame, blazoning him across the sky.

© Robert Nicholas 2005

The London Eye

On the 30th of July 2003
I stepped into the London Eye.

It was a sunflower smiling skywards at the eye
of the day. It was an ancient swastika of the sun,

Its rays spinning clockwise: a portal in time,
a circle on the pavement to disappear into...

It is 1940: I see Hurricanes spitting fire
at black winged spiders infesting the London sky.

It is July 2010 and I see this giant steel wheel
shattering under a self immolating explosion -

detonated from a Baghdad in prison in 2004.

It is 1666: I see Wren's dome rise again like the wings
of a fiery angel from the wreck of this charred city.

© 2005 Robert Nicholas