Posted in Poetry, Travel, Travel Writing, tagged Cyprus, Ledra Street, Lefkosa, NIcosia, The Green Line, The UN Buffer Zone, UN Peacekeepers on 23/11/2011| Leave a Comment »
30. Cyprus (Ledra Street, Nicosia/Lefkosa, 1996)
One step. Another.
Crunching hesitantly across the eerie quiet of the No-Man-Zone
that buffers this divided country.
Crossing the Green Line.
The vigilant gaze of peacekeepers tracking my progress.
I mark derelict buildings, pitted with old gun wounds,
and walk a lonely country mile through the heartbreak of a nation.
jpm
Posted in Poetry, Travel, Travel Writing, tagged East Timor, Poetry, Timor Leste, Travel, Travel writing, UN Peacekeepers on 18/05/2011| 2 Comments »
In downtown Dili
As the Peacekeepers’ trucks rumbled importantly by
(their helicopters clacking overhead)
And the children made their way to their teacherless schools
And the dust seeped into every crack and pore,
Someone
Had thoughtfully covered
The bottomless pothole in the centre of the road
With a delicate parasol.
jpm
50 words for 50 countries 