White Feather

I didn’t see her pass me in the street,
the woman with the husband at the front,
but felt the tell-tale tickle of a feather -
pressed discreetly soft against my palm.
The accusation whispered in a hate-filled voice,
“Coward”, dripped with venom from her lips
and I assumed she talked to me, although I couldn’t see
if the feather in my hand was truly white.
For I had returne...

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Passchendaele (Autumn 1917)

Blind, wide open, eyes.
Dripping poppy petal tears.
Crimson rivers flow.

Fields transformed to mud.
Deep cut trenches scar the earth.
Wounds that will not heal.

Gas clouds drift from hell.
Death exhaled in fetid breath.
Lost boys fall like flies.

Ghosts haunt no mans land
searching for their bitter souls
in butchered bodies.

Finding empty shells,
...

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Grandchildren Of The Somme

the dead lay on the injured earth
all wearing grey death masks of mud
a tally of what life is worth
just bone and sinew flesh and blood

attrition wrought its deadly cost
the river Somme held back its flood
humanity forever lost
just bone and sinew flesh and blood

sixteen miles wide and just six deep
survivors wondered if they could
block out the dreams t...

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