G: This poem by Bryan Thomas made me very proud. Beauty is the weapon and we fight for truth, peace and justic.

GILAD’S CITIES

PARIS. Accordion,

essentially Parisian,

echoed by the clarinet.

Here love is true,

is soulful and the depth of it is fearful

not because of things unknown to come

but because its felt so deep.

TELAVIV, never been, but Africa, the North

blew loud and clear, those

phrases, musical, ring true.

This is a ‘foreign’ land,

where people love and hate,

are passionate; their boundaries,

in all senses of the word, are marked,

unlike our favoured compromise.

MOSCOW, more the Volga boatmen

than Red Square,

just like those Russian jokes

about the funny side of life

which we still find bizarre.

SCARBOROUGH. Oh, Scarborough Fair

parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme

that haunting theme,

the saxophone evokes so well.

A break from melancholia

takes us to the Fair we had forgot

until the phrase returns

and we are lost in thrall.

BERLIN! Heil! Jawhol?

No, not a bit of it.

The Empire has returned,

waltzing in, to leave the audience,

off key and counting three

before the break.

Bryan Thomas

19.02.13