Was John Lennon
crossing the line,
mucking about,
burning his bridges,
or bucking the palace,
a fine sign of the times
then, in 1969,
not often seen,
when returning his MBE
to The Queen?
in the 1940 detective movies
leading men were called gumshoes
women were referred to as molls, dames, chicks or dolls.
it was acceptable for the men to swat a woman’s bottom.
She giggled and acted like she enjoyed it.
it was so normal some of us little ones did not know how wrong it was.
I am the decade of nuclear
Reaction.
I am the Japanese surrender
Reads the caption.
I am the Iron Curtain speech
By Winston Churchill.
I am Congress passes
The G.I. Bill.
I am George Orwell's 1984
Book.
I am the microwave oven,
A quick cook.
I am the Manhattan Project
Takes shape.
I am one of the first ones
To buy duct tape.
I am Hiroshima when we
Drop the bomb.
I am the slinky watch it
Move along.
I am the start of world war
Two.
I am, Pearl Harbor in
The Red, White, and Blue.
I am the Nazi's give up and
Surrender.
I am an American we will
Defend her.
TURBO1904
Warsaw 1940 certain inhabitants designated
A health risk were ordered to strip naked
Had to shower to become clean this ploy
Caused public humiliation, and showed
Dominence there was also mass quarrantine
Also to your own house that was
Useless in its 'so called mission'
And in fact caused a rise in infection
As the immune systems of people
Lowered due to length of confinement
this was a take on the tried and
Tested method (the public heakth emergancy)
Pioneered earlier that decade in Germany
In declaring a public health emergency i think
In 1933?, this enabled opening the way for martial law
Which was the springboard hitler craved to get
Complete control of the German populace
Any person of Germanic nationality over the age
Of forty years in age, should be able to validate
These events as also george psoriasus and
klaus the louse would be emminently qualified
To so do.' At this moment in the UK a rise in
Typhoid cases is being flagged up by the health
Department..
As our troops tramped in retreat to La Panne,
who was it who held the enemy back?
The Royal Norfolks were part of the plan
to hold the line against German attack
till the last man and the last round was spent.
In Duriez Farm holed up, surrounded,
exhausted, many wounded, in torment
with no means of escape they surrendered.
The Totenkopf lined them against a wall,
ninety-seven gunned down, piled in a pit.
Yet Pooley and Callaghan survived to crawl
from that heap – years on in a court to sit
and bear witness to this massacre crime
which led to the hanging of Fritz Knoechlein.
The drone of bombers
In the night sky
A wail of sirens
From the terrified city
Where youth and innocence die.
W.A. CHOLT. Copyright Fergal O Reilly 2018.
Lifting tram rails in 1940,
he was aware of the Louvre...
was aware of a cameraman.
Now we see a black and white world,
where leaves on trees have shed their green,
and the sky is a wish-washy grey...
We see the tram rails piled untidily,
and a bicycle boy on right
fearing he'll be late for school.
We see his and rail man's Paris of 1940
with years ahead of war in Europe,
and now bereft of trams.
---------------------------------------------------------------
7/10/2015
Contest - Open Poetry
Sponsor - Charlotte Puddifoot
4th place win
---------------------------------------------------------------
Featured poem for week of Sunday, 14th February, 2016.
in the village street
alone our brand new gas lamp
this our Las Vegas,
while we all celebrated
enemy bombs raining down.
© Harry J Horsman 2014
14 May 1940
Rotterdam was brung
Gotterdammerung
..............................................................................
Note
(a ) In 1940 the Germans bombed most of the city
centre of Rotterdam, killing thousands of civilians
and destroying the city centre.
(b ) “Gotterdammerung” is a German word meaning total
destruction. The word is also the title of an opera.
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.