Electric Baton
In the pause beneath
a bare light bulb which has been
sun and moon for weeks
(with rice cooking not a mile away
children coming in from school)
the soldier’s eyes slide
from the electric baton
to your wet body
what he will do
will be done attentively
it will require imagination
a kind of empathy
some feeling for its meaning to you
The discharges will jump a gap
too difficult to look at
weld for unbearable seconds
two pains together
Bones III
The doctor’s pen
traces the length
of her back-lit bones
on the light box
circles the fracture
with care
the break
an opened gate
* Poet and business man, “settled farmer” and “marauding Viking”, religious spirit who does not believe in God, vegetarian who sometimes needs a steak – Mark McDonnell's poetry attempts to face his contradictions and look behind the curtain of this world.
