Under the Frog

[According to a Hungarian saying, the worst place in the world is “Under the frog’s arse down a coal mine”. So any less than delightful situation is… “Under the Frog”. Military people like to complain, whatever country they’re from.]

 

None worse than the cell in Gibraltar,

or the tent in the sands of Oman.

Winds from all corners of the globe,

haha - as if there are vertices on a sphere.

 

Drunk or dry, up or down

All the places were so different

- whilst remaining exactly the same.

Even the five-star rooms

were glossy boredom

with room service,

and a swimming pool outside.

 

And yes, the song, too, remained the same,

under the frog’s arse down a coal mine:

where dawn and the darkness before it

have no meaning or purpose.

 

I listened to the disembodied,

the voices in the ether.

 

Radio days!

G-muffled

intercommunicating targets,

eavesdropped into danger.

 

Now there are drones,

we workers are long replaced.

Many thought it improbable

that we could fly,

though thirty thousand feet

was achieved with ease.

 

And with a hangover - or without -

the aluminium tomb was worst:

truly under the frog,

- yet above the ground-

jet-driven boredom

with stewed tea and fast food

interspersed with moments

of jittery panic

or insight.

 

And at ‘home’, back in Blighty:

make-work and marching,

bullshit and bitching.

Drinks at lunchtime,

sundowners at five.

Down a coal mine

with no light

from the adit

-the frog’s arse

in the way.