Colours

I wrote this poem for the next Guernsey Poets Open Mic. It is on the subject of 'Colours'. I hope you like it.

Colours

Phosphorus flares illuminate
with eerie shimmering light
ethereal clouds that drift
like spectres on the wind.
Angry orange tracer
leaps skyward from the ground
a sudden flash of brilliant white
leaves eyes awash with stars.

Moonlit shadows flicker,
amongst the tussock grass.
Where a company on its belt buckles
slowly makes advance.
Then on his chest a poppy blooms
it's petals scarlet red.
By morn' it's dried to rusty brown
against his kaki vest.

Black ink on creamy parchment
convey the fateful news.
Rosy cheeks turned ashen grey,
Tears from green eyes flowed,
they rolled past her soft red lips,
to the turquoise blouse below
to form a stain, like drops of rain
above her heaving breast.

A life time later; upon her chest
a plain red poppy’s pinned
beside ranks of rainbow ribbons
on which his medals swing.
All around the white marble;
troops, dressed in gleaming best
rally on the colours - their colours
and remember comrades lost.

Yet beneath that clear azure sky
amidst all the pomp and ceremony
A single teardrop breaks free
from a bright green eye.
It slips gently past thin red lips
where a glint of sun its prism splits
into a whole spectrum of colour
which sparkles as his soul goes by.

John Carré Buchanan
13 February 2014

If you click on the link below you can listen to me read this poem.