Softly Chimes the Bell...

She floats around the house
wearing shadows, star-shine
and a silk chemise; up her sleeve...
the murmurings of an earthquake...
standing, looking out the window
she turns, hugs, then kisses me –
as if I put the ripples on the pond
that shimmy in the moonlight.

In the corner of the kitchen
a little boy – his skull blown apart,
is treated by some medics, as
in another room, his dad and sister die...
and her pink-rinse does its thing
beneath her towelling turban...
while a punch-drunk Dylan insists
on singing out his heart...

"Tolling for the aching whose wounds
cannot be nursed, for the countless
confused, accused, misused, strung-out
and worse. And for every hung-up
person in the whole wide universe
as we gazed upon the chimes
of freedom flashing."