John Marsden, poems from Tomorrow series

[doranwen.livejournal.com]

Below are several poems I found in John Marsden's Tomorrow, When the War Began series. In the books, one of the characters, named "Chris", wrote them.


Trucks grumble in the dark cold
On the road to despair
There's no sun, no clouds
No flags anywhere.
The men they walk with bowed heads.
They have no love to spare

A bad black horse
Steals into my head
And moves across the landscape of my mind,
While I sleep.
He does what he likes in there.
The next day I feel
The Damage.

They will carry me to the field
Through wreaths of mist
Moist on my face,
And the will pause
For a thoughtful stare.
The soldiers, they will come.
They will lay me in the dark cold earth
And push the clods in upon my face.

In the quiet mist
I watch her go.
It feels like snow.
There's a feeling that I get.
I walk back home
Sad and slow.

The foal burst into life:
A slither of limbs
And startled eyes amongst the straw,
And the rich wet smell of birth.
Then it was dawn: it was
The light of life.

Mares and foals
Stumble
Running in the dark
Where their shadows remain.
I live in the light,
But carry my shadows with me.