Issue Five - June 2009
Les Wicks
Les Wicks has toured widely and seen publication across 11 countries in 7 languages. His 8th book of poetry is the Ambrosiacs (Island,2009).
http://leswicks.tripod.com/lw.htm
Boy Soldier
He talks about childhood
and prays for old age. There is no middle.
Ishmael Beah shot their feet and after a day of screams
shot their heads for the birdless quiet of evening.
Soldiers in the grasslands
reciting Shakespeare while they
snort brown-brown.
He was twelve.
We are all programmed to believe, a flaw
in the biology.
Our flaky hearts
on all those disappointing flags.