Underwater Detonation of a World War II Bomb
An ingestion of time,
the bomb looks inward:
tortures reel endless
on a black billowing screen.
Hidden from war,
from seventy years’ weather,
sightless rats of its own creation
invent continuous season.
Thumb the pressure points
of earth at the temple,
and thirty feet of water comes,
erupting from its throat.
But the seagulls tell
of others under the river-
pulse in their head ticking,
not even closing their eyes at night.
A southpaw scribbler and member of the Poised Pen since its humble post-war beginnings in Liverpool, UK, John now lives in County Meath, Ireland. His stories and poems have appeared in Rosebud, QU Literary Magazine, Pedestal Magazine, Killing The Angel, Ares Magazine, Orbis, Pseudopod, and Grasslimb. A poem of his is displayed in the finest Liverpool pub, The Ship & Mitre.