Reverie
What if Wilfred Owen had not
succumbed to a Maxim gun,
in the last days of that senseless war?
An empathetic soul in a brutal world,
his verse, unsparing yet measured,
what might have been had he survived?
No doubt he’d have struggled, blown
with visions from hell, reclaiming his
civilian status, permanently altered.
I can see him in a country house, on a
warm summer’s evening, savouring
Keats, or Wordsworth, surrounded by
bird song and flowers, hosting friends,
like Siegfried Sassoon, or mentoring a
youthful Dylan Thomas, rapt in nature.
I can visualise him grown old and wise,
a reluctant bard, suspicious of fame,
sought by many, his study, cluttered with
credits, awards, too many to mention.
O to daydream, but what can be said
about such a gift, stilled in time, and so
crudely silenced, yet a voice forever
roaring and raging, overflowing with love?
I’m sure he’d have continued his
resistance, opposed the war machine, the
industrialised slaughter, and the graceless,
small-minded losers whose egos soar higher
than heaven.
Small Things
I’ve had my head in the swamp too long,
gagging on a useless war, like a bucket
of rotten eggs, nothing romantic, just a
stench that lives in the nostrils, refusing to die.
I hold my granddaughter for a photo,
here, the consecration of love, a
baby-cooing benediction. O precious
descendant, don’t be deceived by the
endless guile, instead, refute the carnage.
A robin alights on the windowsill, prizing
a twig in its slender beak, soon it will flit
among the stringy barks, and converse
with its mate in the bee-humming glade,
building a nest, so intricate, untroubled by
the squalid past.
The taint of war never leaves, no alcohol
can expunge it; no chamois can wipe
away the grief, no needle can transport it
to a lasting heaven, no elixir, no
distractions, but perhaps the fragile twig
in the robin’s beak holds a clue, unrealised,
a new start somewhere, or the baby-soft
movements felt in my arms will offer a moment
of redemption.
Hanrahan, Sullivan, and I
We wandered down the track, Hanrahan, Sullivan,
and I. We sauntered, laughing at some stupid joke,
fags in hand, blowing smoke, talking about sex and
the fun to be had, talking about going on leave,
getting drunk, talking, talking, and then a mine went
off, where there wasn’t supposed to be one, and it was
just Hanrahan, and I.
Last Hurdle
He fell at the last hurdle.
A year of operations, dodging mines, ducking
fire, leeches, ear infections, tropical ulcers,
malaria, hookworm, promotion, then demotion,
his best mate, dead…
He’d survived it all and was looking forward to
getting drunk back in Singapore, a few joints,
a girl or two, but they’d yet to clear the long
grass around their lines at Nui Dat, and then it
happened, a grenade found the mower blade,
two buggered legs, and a lifetime of bloody misery.
Dark Fate
Defunct silos cast shadows in the setting
sun, to the edge of the earth and beyond,
their duty done, awaiting demolition.
Here is the fabulous dream of man, a
crumbling nuclear power plant.
It exists, despite Chernobyl spreading
havoc across the food bowl of Europe,
Geiger by Geiger.
It exists despite the agony of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki, sacred people, reduced to
patterns on the pavement.
So, the plant will soon be gone, but the
waste lingers – longer than recorded
history, tens of thousands of years.
Decommissioned subs’ clank hulls in
backwater graveyards, their reactors
removed to temporary locations, open pits,
guarded, until a better solution comes along.
Our nuclear legacy is forever, a stain on all
that lives, and as it lingers, power
corrupts, and with this comes the end of man.
Bien Hoa
He hailed from the Delta. One of the medics
recognised him from combat training, back
in the USA.
He was aware of his situation, labouring to
speak, a muffled rambling, hard to decipher.
And then, quite clearly, he said, “I can smell
the ocean,” before slipping away, incoherent.
The medic kept working, doing what he had
to, like all charged with dealing with it.
When the chaplain arrived, the boy from
Mississippi half-raised his head, and gazing
at something far off, uttered in wonderment,
“Look, look, the ocean.” And that was it.
Last Ride
Love, forgive me, my mind ran wild last night,
bucking and cavorting, charging in full flight –
a rider loose upon the plains, radical and free,
waking in my wretched bed, it was back to me.
That cruel American war raged for many years,
a defoliated journey rent by tainted fears, but
harbouring no grudge, I’ve reconciled the past,
while taking medications that never seem to last.
Reflecting on the battlefield, debris rises high,
clearing off in minutes, it’s left a man to die,
a lethal jumping jack, slicing flesh so deep,
nearby a fallen comrade writhes without his feet.
Love, forgive me, if soon I must depart,
I’ve valued your support, vital from the start,
each day’s been a blessing, but I make this call –
when next upon the plains to ride this way no more.
The Omen
It wasn’t his war; he felt no animosity
towards the enemy, the people he was
supposed to kill.
He wasn’t gung-ho, but made of it what
he could, until the omen arrived.
The letter was sent to him directly, not
Dear Soldier, like those in the mailbag
adjacent to the bar in the company mess.
Back home, a fortune-teller had read his
future in the tea leaves. He was in great
danger unless he got out.
His platoon was aware of the situation.
From outward and easy-going, he became
inward, cautious, like he was about to get it.
He was spooked. He couldn’t laugh it off,
and quitting the war was out of the question.
There was no escape hatch. And he bought it.
1914-
The hallowed choir of shells, unseen, reshapes
our lives, broken, unredeemed by death.
We top the front and divvy out our love, fighting
for a cause that never was, a lie, thus in toxic
ether creep, the beleaguered sons of arrogance.
Are we pushing for another war or clinging to a
desperate hope?
Tombs stand tall to life’s revolt.
This frenzied age decrees a time to live, or die, with
manic fervour spent, but when to halt this crazy game,
remit the lethal past, deny encryption of our innocence?
Prayer
In the drum-ridden fields,
doubt folds to death’s flank,
the mad heart beats,
remember where the comb’s
teeth meet – sad, sick, soul, presented for judgement.
Confluence…
Nobody owns death.
When the money changes hands,
make us equal in your love,
murderer, and saint, in your chamber.
The Colony
We arrived late at night, shackled man-to-man,
heads down, shuffling in unison.
Imprisoned so far from home, we valued
our friendships, a mate was a saviour.
We suffered under the lash, goaded,
malnourished, flogged if we dared to buckle.
Freed from shackles, we took to the land,
surviving as we saw fit, offering little mercy.
We slaughtered the clans, spread disease,
and poisoned their water holes.
Sadly, such dominion persists, like the No
Vote at the 2023 Referendum.
By rejecting the Uluru Statement, a stake
was driven through the heart of the nation.
So, it’s business as usual; fracking,
spraying, crushing, felling, and denying.
And as the environment suffers, we suffer,
like native fish, asphyxiating in their millions.
We arrived late at night, shackled man-to-man,
heads down, shuffling in unison…
Palimpsest
He travelled through the outback,
sleeping rough, finding work.
The war haunted him. He was unable
to settle down.
He met her in a pub. His instinct was
to move on, but she seemed different.
It led them to rent a farmhouse in a
gully beside a creek.
His sleeping habits alarmed her,
thrashing about, yelling, and moaning.
At her insistence, he agreed to see a
shrink, but refused all medication.
It was idyllic, working as casuals on
the surrounding farms.
At night, they’d listen to the barn owls
screeching from the river thickets.
He often dreamt about a girl in a
white Ao Dai, who panicked and ran.
And as she fled, the lieutenant shot
her in the back. She was just thirteen.
It was brutal; all that was left were the
years of guilt and regret.
There was no getting over it, but he
no longer felt the need to run.
She understood his predicament, and
was prepared to make it work.
Like the big wet, which slowly erased the
dry season’s bitter calligraphy.
The Man Next Door
Such a quiet man who did everything by rote, he
lived next door for many years but seldom spoke.
He was, my father said, a veteran of the war, but
he never mentioned once his service in the corps.
He didn’t have a pet like us, an old family cat, but
if we ever went away, he ensured it never lacked.
From Dad, I overheard, he’d done his hearing in,
something about the trenches; the relentless din.
Each week a local shop delivered all his food –
he’d wait by the gate to pay up what was due.
Never a tradesman, like a plumber to his door,
I don’t remember anyone developing that rapport.
Such a solitary man, yet he never seemed alone,
birds would often greet him or dogs on the roam.
He always acknowledged me with a little nod – a
grin would spread across my face in quick response.
Never a condemnation or complaint of any kind,
the six that broke his window intended for the sky.
He held his arms aloft and watched it sail through,
I held my youthful breath at just what might ensue.
Time rolled on forever, nothing seemed to change,
forty hours Dad strove each week, to make it pay.
Until that very moment when something went awry,
it started with a smell, like something big had died.
Sadly, he’d hanged himself; a note was never found,
but he had a distant relative in a very distant town.
He came for all his things, old books and clothes,
leaving by the garden bin a crumpled length of hose.
When his house was sold, we sold ours as well,
both levelled and divided into smaller blocks to sell.
So only in my mind are those early memories stored,
of that enigmatic chap – the man who lived next door.
White Feather
We remember the fallen, their names
are inscribed on our public memorials,
yet we pillory those who refuse to bear
arms, and who remain anonymous.
Pacifists are deemed unpatriotic.
It suits the official narrative, and the
brainwashed perpetuates the myth by
presenting them with the white feather.
In World War 1, some resisters were
taken to the front in shackles, tied to
posts above the trenches and left to die.
How to avoid the pack?
War is mostly about industry, slump, war,
boom, but, as always, the truth is sacrificed.
Morphing
Having failed selection, we’re told to strip,
then hounded down a concrete race
with whips cracking and dogs lunging at
our bodies.
The scene morphs into an airport
lounge, with a dog on a lead, sniffing for
contraband, slamming our minds shut
like a reinforced door.
We scream while the Zyklon B does its
work, before the chamber falls silent,
opened to reveal a pyramid of livid flesh.
Carried on litters, our corpses are
transported to the adjacent crematorium,
where the dog reappears from the airport
lounge… just sniffing around.
Gaza
Does the Universe flinch when an
unborn baby dies?
Do its rivers run tears when a
million mothers cry?
Will it stare down the killers with
their dodgy alibis?
As they plunder, as they kill, as they
crucify?
Straw-foot
“Squad… halt!”
Yeah, halt, alright, in the blood-
soaked mud, gagging on mustard
gas.
“Squad… by the left, quick march!”
Yeah, quick, alright, over the top for
what?
“Squad… mark time!”
We’ve always marked time, and we
always will until we figure it out, but
we never do, do we?
They watched him, probing for any
signs of weakness, but he surprised
them like he’d seen it all before.
The intention was to scrub him down,
but his internal anger held sway; he’d
fight like a madman with nothing to lose.
And they sensed this. So, they backed-off.
Diaspora
Genocide thrives in Palestine; a vile tumbleweed snared in the
holy lands. And these people are truly lost.
What can save them?
How will the template be broken, so bound to resistance?
Israel, established by decree, stricken, unable to disconnect,
hounded from Masada to the Holocaust.
The plan was wrong from the outset, with people thrown
from their homes, as people were once thrown from the cliffs.
It’s all been so badly handled.
Fear engulfs the holy lands; a relentless hysteria carried on
the wind, from a mountaintop in Bavaria.
There is your culprit, there is his lair, the past made present.
O Israel. O Palestine.
Such historic places, such beautiful names, and wonderful faces.
And pride.