Just a minute

by Martin Elder

Sunday 27th March 2016 7:58 pm

Just a minute is all it takes

To get up

Get dressed

Take a shower

Take a leak

To decide which way to go

To share a coffee with a friend

To smile and laugh

To catch the train

To reach the airport

It takes just a minute

To wait

The check my passport

To make the decision

Which route to the boarding gate

Just a minute to hear the boom

To fall to the floor

To feel my leg

To see the blood ooze from my hip

To realise I am not dead

To count the seconds and the minutes

That have passed

To feel my heart pumping through my head

To know that I am on the ground

When the second blast

Hit where I stood

That I was more fortunate than most

It takes just a minute

For the penny to drop

That when the dust is settled

I’m still here

In this hospital bed

Based on an interview of a victim of the Brussels bombs

Comments

Martin Elder

Tue 29th Mar 2016 19:03

Thanks for your comments and encouragement fella's. it was one of those spur of the moment pieces that captured my thinking. everything seems to happen so quickly and easily without us being aware at times. Thus the title.
Thanks for the History details M.C. it certainly helps us to be more aware and therefore be careful in how we react. The recent death of a newsagent in Scotland who was liked be all the community and sent an encouraging message to his customers serves to underline this.
Thanks again

M.C. Newberry

Tue 29th Mar 2016 17:44

Hard hitting in its almost casual telling of an ordinary day
suddenly made something entirely different.
In terms of a historical footnote, let's go back over two
hundred years when Thomas Jefferson, one of the great
US presidents, was seeking a resolution to the Barbary
Wars: Algeria, Morocco, Tunis, Tripoli all seeking
levies for American hostages taken captive. The Tripoli
ambassador was asked why attacks should be made
on a country that was giving no offence to the nations
concerned and was told "it was founded on the Laws
of the Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all
nations who should not have answered their authority
were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make
war upon them wherever they could be found, and to
make slaves of all they could take as prisoners."
Jefferson resolved to confront and defeat the Barbary
Pirates. The US Navy and Marine Corps were
created - and did the job.
NOTE: It has been calculated that between 1530 and
1780 as many as a million and a quarter Europeans
were kidnapped and enslaved by Muslim autocracies on
the north west coast of Africa.

Harry O'Neill

Mon 28th Mar 2016 22:33

Concerning the occasion that this deals with:

Tony Blair`s comments that we are in for a very long slog
seems very relevant.

This poem deals with the ordinary casualness of the entry into the terrorised situation and the numbed daze of the after-shock very well.

Andy N

Mon 28th Mar 2016 00:28

great stuff, martin. i agree with stu but it is very skillfully wrote indeed.

andy

Stu Buck

Sun 27th Mar 2016 22:51

great stuff martin. i knew from the first verse where this was heading but it still packed a punch when it got there. i love the ending, the ironic sense of thankfulness that he is still alive.

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Just a minute

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