#314 - two poems for the armistice - sortition and lest we (or never again)

 

11.11.20

314

two poems for the armistice

 

sortition

or

come in ringer

 

truth and counter truth

apologies to WBY

 

 

down among dead ladders

all seek to eke and after

little wallow

no one watches

all improvised

and just to breathe

 

after you…

no, after…

 

a ramble and a clamber

blissed to know

that I exist

and take my luck along

 

time lets

and the turning

is anyone’s guess

 

it’s mine now

trill and pip

 

roll in the mud

come catch, forgive

 

where I am always

ready to go

in mists and meadow me

on the way

at home

 

hum haunting

tune already known

 

bung stairs

and even down in the dust

still climbing

take my luck along

you yours

crawl through the book

must swallow much whole

 

paint stage

refuse to sweep

run ragged

 

now see me

hoof by rung by claw

starting up

here’s luck

 

 

 

 

 

lest we

ekphrastic for Will Longstaff’s ‘Menin Gate at Midnight’

 

 

lest we

go again for horrors

lest doom do

 

listen heart head

listen up

 

learn the other language

turn the other cheeky bugger

 

learn to take a joke

and thicken skin

set doves, coo

and listen

 

it defuses bombs

 

witness

learn to tell

 

o say can you see

how great that war was?

bombs in a gallant burst

and flags so streaming

fuckwit stuff!

 

hear the ringing of the tills

make monuments

of death, its unknown

greed’s maw

 

were whistled up once to march

someone made a killing

who?

learn to ask or otherwise

 

see the ghost army?

they are not blaming

meekly, under orders, trudge

 

listen –

‘not worth it’s’

what they mostly mean

but cannot say

 

did you hear the whistling begin?

comes from a long way off

the ghost risk

silent chorus

 

call them ultimates

wearied past time

it’s they condemn

their absence grows

where we forget

and are forgotten in our turn

 

here comes the sun once more

 

say they do not worship war

but follow the orders for it

say ‘rules’, they say ‘engagement’

they call it all ‘defence’

 

I say

listen heart head

listen up

 

hear the wrongs

of empire’s trodden

dollars done to them

 

ungrovel to the bully

unsalute

accept the truth

of how you’re here

and where we are

 

make treaties fair

try not to frighten

bury the uniforms

and flags

 

one day we’ll shake hands

 

and say never again

say never

say it with me now

 

set doves, coo

and listen

 

and listen

and listen

again