Pockets Full of Dust

His pockets hold the dust and sand
that conquering armies trod across.
The cracked creases of his hands
conceal the fragments of hardened blood
of past invaders; Alexander's army,
Khan's hordes of genocidal plunderers,
Tamerlane, and a host of others
long forgotten by the parched
stained skin of coveted soil.
He sits, knees bent, clutching
a captured weapon, and peers out
on the beauty of the mountains,
the snowy peaks, their melt so far away,
peers out from a cave
a ridge, a vantage point,
both predator and prey.
From this wild and weathered
roof upon a scuttled land
he fingers loose bullets in his pocket,
bullets made a universe away,
for weapons sold for profit,
crafted and mongered for power,
rubles and greenbacks.
These bullets know no loyalties,
distinguish not the ideologies,
nor remember the forges
that churned them out,
know not, nor want to,
peace or compassion,
but rather greed and some
manifest destiny
to control the differences,
the balances.
These poisons sown
over years of fear and arrogance
can be and were
stuffed down so
innocent throats
back in September.
What can men with bullets and dust
in their pockets expect to achieve?
The weapons change,
the words echo deaf and dumb,
the dust remains the same.

David Fraser likes to balance his life among a variety of activities in the areas of writing, education and sports. When he is not formally working as an educator, he is either writing and researching or involved in one of the following sports: alpine skiing, ski teaching as a full time professional ski instructor at Mt. Washington, BC http://www.mtwashington.bc.ca/winter/default.cfm , windsurfing, tennis, golf, cycling, hiking. In addition he likes to garden, listen to the blues, and search for his way through Taoism. He has built his second water garden which has become his new daily sanctuary. His is learning and refining his Spanish fluency and will travel back to Central and South America in the near future. He lives among the flora and fauna of the British Columbia West Coast.

Email: David Fraser

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