Colin F. Jones

WE HAD NO CLOCK

We had no clock, we had no bed or sheet;
When I lay down, I could always see my feet.
The sound of rain that made the ground all wet,
Is a sound that comforts me from that time yet.
We had no cushions no pictures on the walls,
Without a nail a picture from hessian falls,
The wind that blew beneath the patchwork roof,
Meant anything loose instantly became aloof.
Perhaps that is why living in a hole in Vietnam,
Was not as bad as it was for another man,
Who had his granddaddy’s clock upon the wall,
That while he lay there ,he could that clock recall.
But I found comfort from the monsoon rain
That used the pit I slept in for a drain.