S – 21
Fourteenth day of May ‘78
Chan Kim Srung, with child, fated before the Rollecord, quarter plate
Her sleeping baby taken to Crow’s Feet Pond, beyond the rusting gate
Somersaulted in the Summer sunshine against the twisted killing tree
Gnarled, barkless pain of spread baby brains, raining Khmer Rouge red
Fourteenth day of May ‘78
Harry Mills
A10 Bolabog Apartelle Boracay Philippines
14th August 2012
From : The Shadow of a Dead Child
This is a blog of poems written by A H Mills, who currently lives on Boracay in the Philippines. Curated & uploaded by one of his daughters because, although he can email, he can't comprehend how to blog. Please leave any comments or suggestions you have here, I'll be sure to let my Dad know.
Monday 15 October 2012
Decisions
Decisions
‘It has to be your decision’
Scared by the young doctor’s white coat pocket
Scarred with a series of blue biro skids
‘He’s our only kid’
The life-support drip slips out of his life
Soon to cease being, soon to be deceased
‘It has to be your decision’
The pea-green strobe straight-lines
No more drips, no more blips on the monitor
Rising and falling like electronic hiccups
Then the tears and conversation about organ donation
Papers already signed, sealed and now to be delivered
‘It has to be your decision’
Our last goodbyes, last kissing closing eyes
His small dead body to be surgically dissected
Elected, by his mother to save the lives of others
His body washed, his blonde hair combed and parted
Departed, to the cold waiting kidney bowls
Harry Mills Boracay Philippines 12th August 2012
‘It has to be your decision’
Scared by the young doctor’s white coat pocket
Scarred with a series of blue biro skids
‘He’s our only kid’
The life-support drip slips out of his life
Soon to cease being, soon to be deceased
‘It has to be your decision’
The pea-green strobe straight-lines
No more drips, no more blips on the monitor
Rising and falling like electronic hiccups
Then the tears and conversation about organ donation
Papers already signed, sealed and now to be delivered
‘It has to be your decision’
Our last goodbyes, last kissing closing eyes
His small dead body to be surgically dissected
Elected, by his mother to save the lives of others
His body washed, his blonde hair combed and parted
Departed, to the cold waiting kidney bowls
Harry Mills Boracay Philippines 12th August 2012
Taphephobia
Taphephobia
Awake the afterbirth of blood, without a kiss
Of mother’s clawed, gnawed twisted wrists
Her bitten tongue, her babies only silent song
A voice without breath, without breathing
Leaving their souls, her womb in casket tomb
Buried alive, their last eternal cries for death
Harry Mills
Bolabog Apartelle Boracay Philippines
8th August 2012
From :The Shadow of a Dead Child
In 1901 a pregnant Madam Bobin was prematurely buried alive.
After being exhumed by her father, an autopsy showed that she had not died
of yellow fever, as diagnosed, but from asphyxiation in her coffin
where she gave birth to her baby before both dying an horrendous death
Awake the afterbirth of blood, without a kiss
Of mother’s clawed, gnawed twisted wrists
Her bitten tongue, her babies only silent song
A voice without breath, without breathing
Leaving their souls, her womb in casket tomb
Buried alive, their last eternal cries for death
Harry Mills
Bolabog Apartelle Boracay Philippines
8th August 2012
From :The Shadow of a Dead Child
In 1901 a pregnant Madam Bobin was prematurely buried alive.
After being exhumed by her father, an autopsy showed that she had not died
of yellow fever, as diagnosed, but from asphyxiation in her coffin
where she gave birth to her baby before both dying an horrendous death
The Strawberry Skirt
The Strawberry Skirt
The monsoon Bolabog morning wakes below an escaped moon
As silent as Sunday sin, promising as a floured rolling pin
I see from the balcony of geckos, watery reflections
Emblazoned warriors names on young backs for the heavy hod
Saunter behind her strawberry coloured school skirt, swishing
Below the matted black intertwined communication cables
Wet, shining as new shoe laces above her pretty brown face
Walks her daily journey to learn the tables and hear the Filipino fables
Of concrete statues of heroes eternally pointing a crooked finger
Across a Manila bay, polluted with discarded flip-flops and condoms
This is her life, a life of hope and day-dreaming for a foreigner
And her half-caste baby girl that will inherit the strawberry skirt
As she, in turn did, from her elder pregnant sister
Harry Mills
Bolabog Apartelle A10: Boracay Philippines
6th August 2012
From : The Shadow of a Dead Child
The monsoon Bolabog morning wakes below an escaped moon
As silent as Sunday sin, promising as a floured rolling pin
I see from the balcony of geckos, watery reflections
Emblazoned warriors names on young backs for the heavy hod
Saunter behind her strawberry coloured school skirt, swishing
Below the matted black intertwined communication cables
Wet, shining as new shoe laces above her pretty brown face
Walks her daily journey to learn the tables and hear the Filipino fables
Of concrete statues of heroes eternally pointing a crooked finger
Across a Manila bay, polluted with discarded flip-flops and condoms
This is her life, a life of hope and day-dreaming for a foreigner
And her half-caste baby girl that will inherit the strawberry skirt
As she, in turn did, from her elder pregnant sister
Harry Mills
Bolabog Apartelle A10: Boracay Philippines
6th August 2012
From : The Shadow of a Dead Child
Dream of Regret
Dream of Regret
Asleep, in her wide-awake eyeless faces
That know all her names, know her shame
Now, as a child again, unforgiven without penance
Naked, running through a lazy hay field
Briefly glancing at his blurring outstretched hands
Slurring a scream, choked silent in her throat
Harry Mills
Boracay Philippines 3rd August 2012
From : The Shadow of a Dead Child
Asleep, in her wide-awake eyeless faces
That know all her names, know her shame
Now, as a child again, unforgiven without penance
Naked, running through a lazy hay field
Briefly glancing at his blurring outstretched hands
Slurring a scream, choked silent in her throat
Harry Mills
Boracay Philippines 3rd August 2012
From : The Shadow of a Dead Child
Townsfield Woods
Townsfield Woods
Windscreen wipers, relentless as black snipers
On the raining streaks of invaders, in vain
Hearing the descending electric window, smooth
Assuring, as the strangers voice
‘ I’m going as far as Townsfield..Ok ?’
Fixated with his blue-bird tattoo that flew
And landed on her black stocking leg
Trying to remember the car’s logo, his accent
Then, his assent to her palpitating breast
Breaking News :
The short Police Statement informed the TV viewer
That a girl’s body had been found, strangled by black
School stockings, in Townsfield Woods
Harry Mills
Boracay Philippines
31st July 2012
From : The Shadow of a Dead Child
Sleep Baby, Sleep
Sleep Baby, Sleep
Her new baby, pink and warm
Sleeps a baby sleep, dreams a baby dream
With cherub open lips from her milky breast
Secure, safe, clenched finger peace
In an aroma of baby fragrances
Irresistible to the twitching night visitor
That rests on the small smothered face
And feasts on a gnawed new-born nose
Before the brown rat’s tail trails, slithering
Around the chubby chin before silently departing
Through the open nursery window
Harry Mills
Boracay Philippines 29th July 2012
From : The Shadow of a Dead Child
Her new baby, pink and warm
Sleeps a baby sleep, dreams a baby dream
With cherub open lips from her milky breast
Secure, safe, clenched finger peace
In an aroma of baby fragrances
Irresistible to the twitching night visitor
That rests on the small smothered face
And feasts on a gnawed new-born nose
Before the brown rat’s tail trails, slithering
Around the chubby chin before silently departing
Through the open nursery window
Harry Mills
Boracay Philippines 29th July 2012
From : The Shadow of a Dead Child
Myra of the Moors
Myra of the Moors
There is an evil, God forsaken wilderness
Undeserving of name or colour or forgiveness
Where contorted children scream beneath
Weather beaten black heather
Where methane gas chokes the dead grass
Where Keith can still be heard, whispering
‘Burn in Hell’
Harry Mills
Bolabog Apartelle Boracay Philippines
24th July 2012
From : The Shadow of a Dead Child
There is an evil, God forsaken wilderness
Undeserving of name or colour or forgiveness
Where contorted children scream beneath
Weather beaten black heather
Where methane gas chokes the dead grass
Where Keith can still be heard, whispering
‘Burn in Hell’
Harry Mills
Bolabog Apartelle Boracay Philippines
24th July 2012
From : The Shadow of a Dead Child
Echoes of Obscenity
Echoes of Obscenity
Screaming, mouth spitting echoes of vile obscenities
Chase the blasphemous darkness along the flaky
Strangeways walls of institutionalised cat-shit pale green
Cornered in the steamy washhouse’s faces of vengeance
Mouthing, closing-in profanities for the murdered girl
Glinting at an unimaginable fate of secreted razor blades
Harry Mills
Bolabog Apartelle Boracay Philippines
18th July 2012
From : The Shadow of a Dead Child
Screaming, mouth spitting echoes of vile obscenities
Chase the blasphemous darkness along the flaky
Strangeways walls of institutionalised cat-shit pale green
Cornered in the steamy washhouse’s faces of vengeance
Mouthing, closing-in profanities for the murdered girl
Glinting at an unimaginable fate of secreted razor blades
Harry Mills
Bolabog Apartelle Boracay Philippines
18th July 2012
From : The Shadow of a Dead Child
Jason, Ellie and Baby Chloe
Jason, Ellie and Baby Chloe
Did he whisper their names as at bed-time cuddles
Did his insanity glutton on his final revenge
Did his knife held hand remember last Christmas
Did he cry at Ellie’s first smile on her new red bike
Did he close their trusting eyes to blind their pain
Did he murder the bright infinity of his own flesh
Did he ?
Father murders his three children in revenge for his wife’s infidelity
Harry Mills Bolabog Appartelle Boracay Philippines 18th July 2012
From: The Shadow of a Dead Child
The Long Paddie at Aklan
The Long Paddie at Aklan
Jobert crouches, coiled on the bund of soiled levie
Catching the flooded rice field’s baby brown, crawling crabs
With his Filipino quicksilver show, of darting brown hands
Below the creeping shadow of the paddies stooped scarecrow
Embracing the boy with outstretched straw arms
Covered with an old black cloak with cracked, carved pumpkin face
Just the two, alone, a vision of superstition, one with a dark mission
Warned by swooping fruit bats, sensing danger, in the evil shadow
Of the concealed blade and Jobert’s escaping brown crabs
Harry Mills
Bolabog Apartelle, Boracay, Philippine : !5th July 2012
From: The Shadow of a Dead Child
Jobert crouches, coiled on the bund of soiled levie
Catching the flooded rice field’s baby brown, crawling crabs
With his Filipino quicksilver show, of darting brown hands
Below the creeping shadow of the paddies stooped scarecrow
Embracing the boy with outstretched straw arms
Covered with an old black cloak with cracked, carved pumpkin face
Just the two, alone, a vision of superstition, one with a dark mission
Warned by swooping fruit bats, sensing danger, in the evil shadow
Of the concealed blade and Jobert’s escaping brown crabs
Harry Mills
Bolabog Apartelle, Boracay, Philippine : !5th July 2012
From: The Shadow of a Dead Child
The Inn at Whitewell
The Inn at Whitewell
Bloated, olive coated toad, alone, cornered in the dank cellar
Of peeled, teased, dejected Haute Brion wine labels
Lured from the green glass by years of seeping Hodder water
Below the Victorian kitchen’s fire of wet lurchers steaming
Smouldering white it’s cremated apple boughs
Perfuming the cauldron of mutton peas in yellowing vinegar
Rising through the Jacobean ceiling of elm floorboards
Bees- waxed and worn by now names in the graveyard
To a hushed night chamber where the seduced young girl
Arches her white buttocks like the first flurry of powdered snow
Her pale morning back dances to the candle’s silent shadows
Illuminating her undergarments discarded to the elm
Uttering words unspoken, written in deflowered blood
On the unmade bed sheets
Harry Mills
English Bakery, Boracay, Philippines,11th July 2012
From : The Shadow of a Dead Child
Bloated, olive coated toad, alone, cornered in the dank cellar
Of peeled, teased, dejected Haute Brion wine labels
Lured from the green glass by years of seeping Hodder water
Below the Victorian kitchen’s fire of wet lurchers steaming
Smouldering white it’s cremated apple boughs
Perfuming the cauldron of mutton peas in yellowing vinegar
Rising through the Jacobean ceiling of elm floorboards
Bees- waxed and worn by now names in the graveyard
To a hushed night chamber where the seduced young girl
Arches her white buttocks like the first flurry of powdered snow
Her pale morning back dances to the candle’s silent shadows
Illuminating her undergarments discarded to the elm
Uttering words unspoken, written in deflowered blood
On the unmade bed sheets
Harry Mills
English Bakery, Boracay, Philippines,11th July 2012
From : The Shadow of a Dead Child
Pebbles on a Beach
Pebbles on a Beach
A remote remembrance, beyond the headland’s sweep
The beach of white, cold, staring eyes
Of pupil-less pebbles
Washed by time and motion’s memory of stains
Staring without sound at the skies moon
That tides with some comfort and wets with salt tears
The clustered drowned babies eyes
Crunched under foot by a beachcomber’s lost dream
Washed in baptism by the ghost-cream jelly-fish wings
Undulating, bathed in a silent silhouette motion
Like the shadow of a dead child
Harry Mills
Bolabog Apartelle : Boracay, Philippines: 10th July 2012
From :The Shadow of a Dead Child
A remote remembrance, beyond the headland’s sweep
The beach of white, cold, staring eyes
Of pupil-less pebbles
Washed by time and motion’s memory of stains
Staring without sound at the skies moon
That tides with some comfort and wets with salt tears
The clustered drowned babies eyes
Crunched under foot by a beachcomber’s lost dream
Washed in baptism by the ghost-cream jelly-fish wings
Undulating, bathed in a silent silhouette motion
Like the shadow of a dead child
Harry Mills
Bolabog Apartelle : Boracay, Philippines: 10th July 2012
From :The Shadow of a Dead Child
Saturday 21 July 2012
The Long Grass
Her, a special speckled fawn
Lost in the long grass of life
Camouflaged by strange shadows that dapple and mask
The truth, in an age of virgin innocence
Fluttering away into realities of sealed contracts
And sworn oaths of no return
To be hunted and taken in bitter silence
At dawn, in the long grass of life
Harry Mills
5th June 2012 English Bakery Boracay Philippines
In memory of Mejie Fernando
Lost in the long grass of life
Camouflaged by strange shadows that dapple and mask
The truth, in an age of virgin innocence
Fluttering away into realities of sealed contracts
And sworn oaths of no return
To be hunted and taken in bitter silence
At dawn, in the long grass of life
Harry Mills
5th June 2012 English Bakery Boracay Philippines
In memory of Mejie Fernando
Love of my Life
She fumbles the graceless lace That shroud the widowed windows
That stare along the wasting wheat
To the rusting tractor, without parts
To the spindling girls, without hearts
Tommy, love of my life, don’t leave me
Don’t go to fight another man’s dream
She sits and stares
At her reflection in the fire’s cold brass fender
And sees a face that once could smile
He, rigor mortised, lies beside the brass ‘twenty pounder
He has no face to see
Tommy, love of my life, don’t die there
Don’t lie cold, alone without me
She hears a distant woodpecker, tapping
Unknown to her, his last heard sound of machine gun, straffing
That ripped open his chest full of photographs
The woodpecker stops
His work is done, his death delivered
Tommy, love of my life, i love you
Love of my life, love of my death
Harry Mills
4th June 2012, English Bakery, Boracay, Philippines
Dedicated to the widows of Tony’s Ghosts
With respect and memories for Freddy Mercury
That stare along the wasting wheat
To the rusting tractor, without parts
To the spindling girls, without hearts
Tommy, love of my life, don’t leave me
Don’t go to fight another man’s dream
She sits and stares
At her reflection in the fire’s cold brass fender
And sees a face that once could smile
He, rigor mortised, lies beside the brass ‘twenty pounder
He has no face to see
Tommy, love of my life, don’t die there
Don’t lie cold, alone without me
She hears a distant woodpecker, tapping
Unknown to her, his last heard sound of machine gun, straffing
That ripped open his chest full of photographs
The woodpecker stops
His work is done, his death delivered
Tommy, love of my life, i love you
Love of my life, love of my death
Harry Mills
4th June 2012, English Bakery, Boracay, Philippines
Dedicated to the widows of Tony’s Ghosts
With respect and memories for Freddy Mercury
Tuesday 6 March 2012
Sixteen Summers
Sixteen Summers
Slithering serpents,
slimed with their own salvia
Thieving contortionists
of stolen young souls
Of youth, snapped
lilies not yet bloomed
Of sowed wheat, not yet
swayed in afternoon sunlight
Of fruit, unripe, still
bitter to the tongue
Your evil knuckled hand
of death
Stretching out to
snatch its wet-eyed, first day trophy
To suck down into your
serpents den of quicksand mud
Be shameful of this,
his baptism morning of eternity
Let his beloved
Woodhouse Lane weep bitterly
Behind the shrouds, of
soiled terraced lace curtains
Harry Mills Boracay Philippines 5 March 2012
Dedicated to Tony’s youngest ghost :
Private Horace Iles
Aged 16, the youngest soldier to die on the first
day of the Somme
1st July 1916
Friday 24 February 2012
Red Horse
Red Horse
+63 9483849137
‘This is my new number,
it’s me, Cherry’
Not very clever,
together drinking Red Horse, or worse
Watching her change
ring-tones, selecting a Tom Jones
Then another round,
another sound of clinking Red Horse
‘ You got it, you got
my new number?’
I smile, confirming the
worming wriggling, giggling, girl
[ Forgive me Delilah, I
just couldn’t take anymore ]
Cherry’s new number, Boracay,Philippines
Receipting Words
Receipting Words
Receipting words in my
head
Making-up stories in my
un-made bed
Counting sheep
Wishing deep sleep
Was it a big mistake, a
lover’s fake?
I ache and can’t
dismiss the truth
She knows, it’s all
about her youth
The hour pass
Last Requiem Mass
The end is neigh, we
both say goodbye
I fly to Manila, she to Cebu 12th
December 2011
Reference Library : Exeter
Reference Library : Exeter
I think I was the first one in the
reference library
Killing an hour,
waiting for the guy with the crash helmet
To finish reading the
Telegraph and return it to the stand
To no avail, I settle for a trashy Red Top
As I sat, flicking
through column inches of crap, I observe
A dishevelled, woolly
fleeced man with uncombed thinning hair
That should have been
attended, to disguise a lumpy discoloured
Bit of cranium, looking
like a bunch of knuckles from some operation
Gone wrong
And, as I tried to play ‘Who are you, What
are you ?’
He opened a borrowed
newspaper with his dirty nails and proceeded
To read the Chinese
broadsheet.
He didn’t look Chinese, or looked like the
kind of guy who owned
An Oriental Dragon restaurant.
My
inquisition speculated alternatives.
Was he a mercenary, a
missionary, a Mongol trading in jade and expensive
Excentrics?
Then my hour passed, I returned the
newspaper and watched
The mystery man exit
and slowly walk towards the Rising Sun
Return to Ermita
Return to Ermita
Buying cheap shite from
the cheap
Shite man
Walking past the dog
crap and nasty gaping cracks
Knocking back the San
Mig fallen off his
Cebu van
Past the muggers alley
where the kids get smac
I enter the smokey bar
where pretty heads turn
Like owls
Where night and day
blares out thumping rock ‘n roll
And the queer masseur
applies dampened
Neck towels
I watch as my last pesos
pay for her gas, or was it coal ?
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