We grew tall in the shadow of nuclear burn

but inside, as we made these Bicester country

lanes our buffeted fortresses,

our escapes

from those that lied to us from

the outlook of swinging sixties leaflets

and paraphernalia of a golden age

in which they now stood as kings,

taking apart, bit by bit…nothing,

only adding to our insecurities and rage

and swipe back fear

of the errant cuffed ear,

inside we withered, fed on difficult calories

that added little to the nourishment

required, that we sought out ourselves

in loose bus shelters and dusk drawn

evenings of the Garth Park memorial,

where some lost them themselves

in haze driven smoke, dreaming death,

and others in the kiss upon

the lips of the strawberry tingle

and the early steps out of radioactive suits.

The shadow of nuclear burn hung

over us, a constant reminder that our lives,

we too whom now get called nihilistic,

but we preferred to suggest we were revolutionaries

lost in the jungle of older affairs,

of hypocritical oaths of behaviour,

here in this town

where to be young, a teenage wasteland

made assured, save for the chance

to get to the city by bus for culture,

or a feel the brush of back row

pierced feminine kiss, her lips now cherry

dropped and glinted blue eyes, hopeless passion,

or to sit down the front,

popcorn propelled at the screen

and the laughter of the radical, scared

by the continuing threat of a siren

puncturing the air, but forgotten

briefly, when the heroine

kicked in

the doors and took us to arcades

and root beer, of slouching off

in a mood, only to come back, armed

with the easy played and dynamic results

of innocent youthful crime.

We were soldiers in this Oxfordshire town

rifles ready, willing and always able

should the sweet talk of a passing fancy

stalk our moods, if she smiled at us,

just as bored as us,

her own khaki twisted

knickers riding high

up the flagpole and saluted

nightly

as she kept her virtue under wraps,

praise be the nihilistic, for we

were both angel with horns,

devils with a harp,

lager, cheap and bitter,

Garth Park on a Saturday night,

were they even there as they smoked away,

drowning in the ragtime blue

and the pop position

of the missionary;

we were scarred, we loved, lost

our minds dear, and they wonder why

we seem so out of control still,

that our childhood was ripped

from us, and we became children

of the possible thunder, the flash

and the downpour, a storm

that would kiss our ash

farewell.

 

Ian D. Hall 2018