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Tracing Planes

You should be here
Whistling the national anthem
When they march past
In their dusty uniforms.

You should still be here
With your smile
And medals out-shining
The rays of the sun.

You should have come home
And walked down my street
And should have seen
Men walk on the moon.

You should have seen England
Win the Ashes
And had children
Waltzing on your knee.

You should have lived
And came marching home
With your rifle
Waving in the air.

You should have not died
And met your brother’s children
And sat there with pride
At their weddings.

You should have not been killed
But lived to fight another day
And not buried far away,

Tracing planes

And sadness blowing
Like poppies in the heat
Near where you fell. 


(Live Version @ Performance, March 2013
)

Curtain Call Parts I & II ►

Comments

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M.C. Newberry

Thu 14th Nov 2013 15:01

Heartfelt and the more powerful for the reality
behind the words. Your Uncle Percy would be
proud of your poem.
My father survived WW1 as a young subaltern,
then the Anglo-Irish War of 1918-1922, only to
find himself in uniform for WW2. It beggars
belief what his generation endured and I wonder
occasionally what he would have thought about
those who complain so readily these days?
Oh - two small queries.
Verse 5 - shouldn't "came" be "come"?
Verse 6 - wouldn't "But" be more logical in
context in line 2? - otherwise the meaning
seems confusing.
Cheers.

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Andy N

Mon 11th Nov 2013 12:47

thanks tracey. one of my favourites and one i always enjoy doing with the guys.

for the record too folks - this is my about my uncle percy who was killed in india in action in 1941 leading his men into the gates of machine guns.

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tracey bucknell

Sun 10th Nov 2013 22:32

this is lovely andy x

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