Bombs Don’t Always Turn Houses Into Ashes

I am pleased to publish the piece below as the first of many guest contributions to PerfectlyWritePoetry.

Andy Nicholson, known professionally as ‘Andy N’, is a writer, performer and experimental musician from North West England, U.K. His first book,   Return to Kemptown,  was published in 2010. He has since co written two further collections: A Means to an End (with Jeff Dawson – 2011) and Europa (with Nick Armbrister – 2014).

Nicholson, who has a collection of mystery stories due out soon from the Origami Poems Project, is currently working on another full length poetry collection, The End of Summer, due for release next year. 

His work has appeared in many books and magazines and he performs regularly in public, both as an individual and as a vocalist and keyboardist in the spoken word collective, 'A Means to an End'.

 

This poem, Nicholson says, stemmed partly from reading about a bombing near a train station in Israel. But his intention is not political.

“Nahariya 2001

“Bent double in the flames
His charred possessions
Lay split across the ground
Like soil beneath stones

“Scalding his hands in the heat
Throbbing ceaselessly
In the aftermath
Of a midnight bombing

“Which has somehow missed
The train tracks
And also most of his neighbours
Who stand there amazed

“That the bombs
Haven’t turned their houses
Into ashes also

“His lack of sleep
Mirroring the beginning
Of another storm”.

Technorati Tags: #PerfectlyWritePoetry,#Natalie Wood,#Andy Nicholson,#Nahariya 2001,#Bombs Don't Always Turn Houses Into Ashes,#Origami Poems Project

 © Natalie Wood (13 May 2014)