War Photographer

In his darkroom he is finally alone
with spools of suffering set out in ordered rows.
The only light is red and softly glows,
as though this were a church and he
a priest preparing to intone a Mass.
Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh. All flesh is grass.

He has a job to do. Solutions slop in trays
beneath his hands which did not tremble then
though seem to now. Rural England. Home again
to ordinary pain which simple weather can dispel,
to fields which don't explode beneath the feet
of running children in a nightmare heat.

Something is happening. A stranger's features
faintly start to twist before his eyes,
a half-formed ghost. He remembers the cries
of this man's wife, how he sought approval
without words to do what someone must
and how the blood stained into foreign dust.

A hundred agonies in black-and-white
from which his editor will pick out five or six
for Sunday's supplement. The reader's eyeballs prick
with tears between bath and pre-lunch beers.
From aeroplane he stares impassively at where
he earns a living and they do not care.

By Carol Ann Duffy

Balloons - Sylvia Plath

Since Christmas they have lived with us, 


Guileless and clear, 


Oval soul-animals, 


Taking up half the space, 


Moving and rubbing on the silk 



Invisible air drifts, 


Giving a shriek and pop 


When attacked, then scooting to rest, barely trembling. 


Yellow cathead, blue fish-------- 


Such queer moons we live with 



Instead of dead furniture! 


Straw mats, white walls 


And these traveling 


Globes of thin air, red, green,

Delighting 



The heart like wishes or free 


Peacocks blessing 


Old ground with a feather 


Beaten in starry metals. 


Your small 



Brother is making 


His balloon squeak like a cat. 


Seeming to see 


A funny pink world he might eat on the other side of it, 


He bites, 



Then sits 


Back, fat jug 


Contemplating a world clear as water. 


A red 


Shred in his little fist.

[sharon]