Monday, 12 April 2021

Coming from the basement

 Coming from the basement


The siren screamed 

Ripping the silence of the night

Alert, everyone to the shelter

A night raid of course

They all scrambled to the basement

The planes flew by

Then the thudding noise 

Of the exploding bombs

Declaring their impact

On the shunting station

The DCA rattling off  in answer 

Trying to shoot down the planes

Everyone was quiet in the basement 

Huddling together under the blankets

They had seized in panic

They kept in the dark

Afraid a ray of light 

Would tell the enemy . 

She was suffocating she didn’t like

The feeling of the basement 

She couldn’t breathe in that obscurity 

She crept up the stairs ,

Slowly one by one, silently

She arrived on the landing

Slid the basement door quickly

She was outside, could breath again.

The night sky was above her

Cut into dashes of the dca canons

Tracing the enemy planes

The explosions raised fireworks 

Across the night sky too

There was beauty in destruction

When she came from the basement.


My mother could never visit caves,  

Pyramids and enclosed spaces

She always preferred to walk 

Under the open sky

Be it night or war.


Lucette C. Bailliet 

All rights reserved

No comments:

Post a Comment