People dash across our TV screens
like sheep scatting from a moorland blaze,
they’ll disappear over the edge of dreams
when we ascend to sleep away the day.
But, all of a sudden, within a frame,
a portrait animated and tightly-strung:
the cellist plays on streets where lame
buildings hobble before falling down.
His slashback hair is aging a rocker style,
upturned moustache makes a sign of peace;
his two faces: a pizzicato smile
and mournful vibrato of so much grief.
His audience are the pavement wreathes,
from the distance come heckles of gunfire:
the amphitheatre where he once bowed
is a frozen skip of bricks and wires.
On a thin point he gradually spins
the web-fine veins of an Adagio,
while hearing the bomb’s deadening dins
and fearing for that small bridge below.
by Mike Jenkins
from This House, My Ghetto