Marek Kazmierski

Our family traipses home at dawn,

through fields of poppies

the police haven’t sniffed out yet.

Children, their tiny boots knocking

the heads off bluish puff-balls,

fighting off mists with a flagging balloon.

We walk as exhausted as nun moths

which, having copulated all night,

rest on a bed of oak leaves.

Damp air turning talc solid

in wrinkles, unfurling perms,

seeking a higher incarnation

in far-off lights.

Someone’s slip-on shoe in a steaming turd,

puke on a clump of horseradish leaves.

We struggle across boggy meadows,

stumbling through the valley of Josaphat.

Sliding down our frozen hill

on sacks stuffed full of hay,

we swallow clumps of air, pieces

of sky, slaloming border posts.

I empty my moon-boots of icy shards,

my soaked gloves stiffening,

and again run up the mound as if entranced,

hoping all of half-term will be like this.

My Mont Blanc is melting with all this friction.

The sun fading faster than adrenaline

from our flaming cheeks.

Torches come peering through bushes.

Someone shouts: – Go home! – so we go.

Eyes freezing over like tiny planets.

The night was heavy, but the air was alive.

Mike Oldfield

At night, the Chernobyl cloud fell

across pastures. Thyroids swelled.

The pond glowed with murmuring iodine,

swallows kissing crooked mirrors.

The radio kept playing “Moonlight Shadow”.

In the barn, a girl guide from the city started

a club for virgins. Smoking menthols,

we took lessons in preparing for conjugal

life from copies of Playboy instead.

There would be no other end to the world,

and yet it kept coming, like cramps

and acne, until I discovered

spots of dark blood in my underwear.