The Sunday Morning Poet is our new weekly poetry ghetto designed depending on your sensibility to smooth or jar your way into your Sunday. Today in the poem Bender by Jay Lewis, the last day of school echoes down the years...
BENDER (1984)
Some of the flour bombs
Hit their targets
Most exploded
In the road.
Colin laughed
When his blazer got hit
'Well, I'm never fucking wearing that again" he said.
Over the bridge
The boys from the Bottom class
Made a flotilla of warships
In the river.
Torn up exercise books
An inky mess in brown water.
A vital cleansing.
Of unwanted words
You caught me
On the Sports ground
An abandoned land
No place to hide
Above us
swallows soared
Around each other
Swooping like fighter planes
Your signatured shirt,
And Cinzano Bianco
Stolen fags from your dad,
This was the last day, after all.
Above the din
Of the bombs and bombast,
Your parting words
Shot through me.
Without question
You screamed treason
Your informants told you
I was now part of the enemy
So this forever,
My field of failure
My White Flag, My Surrender, Ignored
And you, my assassin
It was just an act of war.
© Jay Lewis, 2023
Essential Information
Bender by Jay Lewis
Jay Lewis will join Black Country authors and poets RM Francis, Kerry Hadley-Pryce and Wayne Dean-Richards at the Outsideleft Night Out on Wednesday June 7th, and the Bearwood Book Shop. Free advanced tickets are recommended available here⇒
