The wandering Lebanese   

            

                  His childish moments of aware

 

                   All from records were,

 

                   Which returned to the camps,

 

                    The sacking of villages, damp,

 

                    The plundering of houses.

 

                    “Sorry, they were here once but do not now”

                      At night, his mother taught him to pray 

                    For his brother, his father fighting away

 

                    Now, he is due to parade, to wander

                     The streets of his records, let his thoughts wander. 

                  “Sorry, they were here once but do not now”

  

                   At the same time, a scarecrow

 

                    From that bitter war told

 

                   “You will fight till you lie down

                    Beside the Lord you have loved”                   “Sorry, they were here once but do not now” 

                    Wrath has learnt every trick of guerrilla warfare

 

                     Feinted retreat, shamming deads to hoodwink each other, crusader.

 

                      There are faces, for which he has been on the look out,

                       For others on the look on.                   

                  “Sorry, they were here once but do not now”

 

Don’t look round him! Not to catch

 

A sight or hear a voice you touch

 And some of them, he seems to have seen before. “Sorry, they were here once but do not now” 

Why that granny who reads the coffee grounds?

 

And that tobacco coloured moustache Daddy never returned?

 

And that teenager tattooed with a cross on his heart?

 And that young pregnant mother disembowelled for her confession? “Sorry, they were here once but do not now” 

The wandering Lebanese speaks of

 

Things we were never told.

 

He hidden his hand from sight

 And in his closed eyes fires a light. “Sorry, they were here once but do not now”