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Helmand's prisoners (Free verse) by Caducus
I - Helmand Province, June 2007
Jeff's head burst out with pomegranate flowers
fragrancing wind, warm as Portsmouth lips.
Opium brushed Adam's face like lovemaking hair
and as moon cradled in the blossomed bough
his best friend folded himself to sleep smiling.
II - Adam's Eulogy
Adam carried his brother like a womb,
he called him arrogant and his protege.
A soldiers eyes are dry as Helmand soil,
and yet being absent from anothers death
could feel like wanting to be dead as much as loved.
III - Telling Jeff's little brother
At six years old you became a soldier
the bravest kind who surrendered childhood
for a heaven your Father described too well.
A heaven where Jeff lay in a field as you dreamt
whispering that a belt should be strapped around a waist,
and a child's neck should look towards the sun.
IV - Adam returns to Helmand Province
You make love to her properly in flashbacks
their is a closeness five thousand miles away.
You arrange feelings like roadside bombs
holding yourself tight as a friends head wound,
pollen through tazer fire is all that is Airborne
and home is away under sun and fire.
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