This Island of Mine

By Rhys Hughes

Every year the storms

are far more powerful

and more frequent too

on this island of mine.

The roof of my house

was blown away only

yesterday and my wife

and neighbour just now.

.

I watch through an old

astronomical telescope

as the receding forms of

those sadly supple fliers

dwindle like an eloping

couple, yet the residual

hope in my despondent

heart is still swindled by

climate change deniers.

.

(Liars who sold their

souls to the diabolical

buyers of rotten goods

and wallow in the mire.)

.

My dog, my cat and my

bathroom mat, and also

my geometric lawns, all

are gone thanks to those

violent winds, and even

words I hoarded to use

in this poem have been

blown away. You may

find them at the end of

this verse, all forlornly

disordered as follows…

.

wet

cold exposed

without a home useless

fruitless rootless and doomed

cocooned boiling floods

mudslides in our

eyes

.

Rhys Hughes has lived in many countries. He graduated as an engineer but currently works as a tutor of mathematics. Since his first book was published in 1995 he has had fifty other books published and his work has been translated into ten languages.

.

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