Three Works
To the men and women
In Harrogate, the cenotaph reads TO ALL MEN AND WOMEN WHO HAVE GIVEN THEIR LIVES IN THE SERVICE OF THEIR COUNTRY. That rarest phrase etched on white Portland stone, to include the women so often forgotten.
A nurse, a Land Army volunteer, a YMCA volunteer, a Queen Mary’s Army Auxiliary Corps volunteer, a munitions worker, several Auxiliary Territorial Service workers.
War doesn't just take men too young from muddy trenches, from boats lost to mine and crashing waves. Behind the front lines, nightingales tend to angel-caressed, shell shocked soldiers. In rough cotton with back bent and aching, crop pickers feed a nation.
In blitz-kissed London, the steel helmet of the ARP wardens couldn’t stop the bombs from dropping. Ceiling pikes testing damaged buildings sometimes caused the debris to slide.
Dulce et Decorum est. It is sweet and fitting only when we remember all the victims of war.
Tuesday 8th May, 1945
We kiss and toast and fuck our way back
to life and hope after years of darkness,
and the death of fascism.
We’re fed that lie.
We’re buried in the pockmarked skin of Europe
seeded with bones, artillery shells.
Bitten by cannon,
tongued by bayonet.
Our arteries bleed families into Poland,
feed furnaces with the lives of six million.
We revel in the streets in London,
climb Nelson's column,
dance in the cold fountain in Trafalgar Square.
The Hearse
Do
you stop
for a hearse?
Tip
your hat,
bow your head
remember
a while
even if you
didn't
know them?
Someone else did.
Someone
gave birth.
Held them close.
Sniffed
their little
fluffy baby’s head.
Someone
cleaned grazed
knee and hand,
sent
them off
with a kiss
Somebody
will miss
them, or worse,
maybe
no one will -
you don't know,
so
the least
you can do
is
Stop, stand
Still, remember them.
