By Chris Lane

is a warm welcome breeze from  the womb,
for kittens and kids a mother’s tongue
for desert life, water
for us the kiss of love.

living is an enormous void
an incalculable, unpredictable present
a confusion of choices
simply given, simply taken away.
one mistake  forever embedded.

birthed in the right  western polar region
given the correct politics
is a kiss reeking  a rank odour
carried by a mindless mind set
exuding  catastrophic disaster,
from the land of milk and honey,
and so on, and so forth…….

birthed in the wrong camp
the other side of the green line
is the kiss of the asp
the sniper’s bullet
recycled poverty, military occupation
one soul turning  red white concrete slabs
an untimely death ensures
recuperation and respiratory resistance.

life is short they say
a swift second flip of the page
but for lovers dazzled by a full moon
diamanté starlets
living  is forever
defying mortality
relentless nightmares
the kiss of  fragile lust.

Death is a bitter-sweet kiss goodbye
it arrives as a fatal shock
a firework revealing its secrets.
a balloon suddenly bursting
spitting out  dreams
into oblivion.

those who stand over us
wonder what was  it all about,
what was the fuss
why nothing left?

such brilliance  suddenly  turned
to crust and dust
by a snipers bullet
a soul slipping irrevocably away
a skeleton in a tomb
still startled eyed.

I can but wonder why the journey
why  anything at all,
it was but a fleeting passage
that kiss of life!

– Chris  Lane is a reluctant writer and has lived illegally in the Occupied Territories of Palestine for too long.