Under the Gun
by Ken Head

Defeated long since, they’re an occupied nation
in a ruined land still overwhelmed by death
and the memory of what’s been taken from them,
but far away, beyond mountains and rivers
they’re no longer allowed to travel to, lies a frontier
they believe marks the line of freedom,
the new beginning they dream of in the bolthole
behind their eyes, their last safe refuge,
somewhere to find a hopeful road to someday,
when the time is right, when the invaders
are tired of power, of being always in control
and have begun to forget what it was they came
to conquer all those years, lost comrades
and millions of rounds of spent ammunition ago.

Ken Head's poems appear regularly in a wide variety of both print and online publications and a number have been anthologized. He has published one full collection and two chapbooks, details of all of which, together with his other poetry activities, are available from his website: www.kenhead.co.uk