Poetry at Sangam

SangamHouse

 










Walls Fall by Les Wicks

Everyone is losing this year’s war.
Turkey cannot cope.

Istanbul has ancient fortifications that now
adjoin parklands as leaders mortar up new arguments.

Culpable gods let good men talk of charity. The displaced ones are
sleeping rough, secreted within those city walls, under its skin.

Fled the fighting & then the camps, they find this stasis
curious. Nobody yells here, there is so much that can be awoken.

62732 & 62733 left Syria.
Only this city’s cats pause to hear the story.

They have joined those strays, stretch
the hopeless plastic across oldest stone.

Buttresses forget the wind
& shelter is the last holiness left.

Deep silent, these invaders assail
the parapets of our mean hearts.

The once-professionals 62732 & 62733 serve
nobody, no purpose. Their prayer mats are rubble.

Without the grouts of expectation they
crumble apace within the monuments that encase them.

Amongst the nobility of a vacuum
winter & the cops burrow into this small peace

as sweethearts roam the paths below
& puppies gambol on the grass.