Morning sun silvered the poplar leaves

Somewhere others lay in the cut clay, waiting 

And I smelt the sea’s dead things

As I walked. 

Kelp, razor shells, crabs, limpets

We laughed and swam in sandy craters

And I walked

By Goat's Water, the Old Man looked down

As he had for all my life 

And all those other lives before

The smell of wet bracken, sphagnum, washed sl...

Read and leave comments (2)

An old man, sat with his back against a dry stone wall
That ran the entire length of a high steel ridge, over looking the river Darrent in the county of Kent.

A great swaythe of red poppies, the soldiers flower covered several acres of the ridge
And besides the poppies, a great cross had been cut out of the chalk that lay only inches beneath the soil.

The old man was a survivor, one of the...

Read and leave comments (1)

The Bicycle Scout (21st August 1914)

bicycle wheel spins in blood drenched Belgian hops
as the echo of a gunshot fades away
behind the gorse hedgerow Private John Parr drops
amid the yellow hypnotic summer sway
he is the first scythe-cut of Britain’s young crops
many come to deathly harvest from this day
and when the madness eventually stops
for him, and those that follow, the world will...

Read and leave comments (2)