Long Soldier Poems
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Black and White, no shades of grey,
How I remember my early days.
I felt so safe and secure,
With my family always near.
War started when I was two,
People stuck together as if by glue.
Everyone helped each other,
All one family of sisters and brothers.
Air raid shelters called Andersons,
Dug in gardens one by one.
Tomatoes growing on the top
I remember having a bumper crop.
We kept chickens and grew veg.
Though we were living on the edge of war,
People shared like never before.
Care and compassion was the key,
To our survival, you see.
There was no time to reason why,
With searchlights looking for bombers in the sky.
Listening for the Doodlebugs,
Keeping close with many hugs.
Sharing such a small space,
In our shelter, with anyone who could not face,
The loneliness and fear,
When nobody else was near.
The Homeguard came around at night,
To make sure no windows let in light.
All windows were blackened out,
If not, The Homeguard man would shout,
"Turn that light out, Right away,
Or a price we all will pay"
Military dying like flies,
Heartbroken relatives suicide
I remember much, much more.
About this devastating war,
How it taught us all to share
With compassion, love and care,
Shown to one and all,
To support each other and stand tall.
Which gave us the courage to soldier on,
Until this unnecessary war had gone.
Marriage in 4 Acts
I've auditioned for parts for years.
Some call them first dates, but make
no mistake, each is acting for the other
hoping for a part in their life play.
I'm a perfect gentleman, holding doors,
helping you on and off with your coat
and pushing your chair in for you.
I almost sound like Cary Grant. Almost.
We land our parts and launch our play.
The engagement scene brings happy tears.
The wedding is a blowout extravaganza.
Rice is thrown, cans trailing our limo.
We live in the city. Taxi and subway.
Fun, not a care in the world. Pregnant.
We stay in the city until our children
force a move to Connecticut suburbs.
Wife's role is a stay at home with regrets.
Kind of a Sylvia Plath without the talent.
I soldier on. I take the train into the city.
I stay more and more nights in the city.
We grow more and more apart. Finally we
agree to a trial separation. I live in the
city with the other woman. Not really a ****.
Time passes quickly in this act and we are old.
The script writes itself as it unfolds.
Always just one take, live, in real time.
I forget that these are parts we are playing.
We're just players upon this stage called life.
I've felt Daren's absence for years,
a most unforgettable memory:
someone who was very close to me.
The long roaring ships cut
through the bubbling and whizzing waves,
and disappeared into the glimmering sea
while dusk obfuscated its brilliance;
unrest was a feeling of anxiety and fright:
how did a young soldier cope with the distance
when shivers brought shadows into his night?
Many noons I sat by this shore
bringing to life images of two buddies so youthful,
we hung out letting our spirits put on wings...
before seagulls would stifle our thrilled voices;
their shrills became much louder and more frightful,
awakening the clustered petrels!
I anxiously wait for the return of the ships,
too dreary is the soundless harbor;
I will greet the returning soldiers
who carry with them the horrors of the war!
Early winter morning remembering
From the soft warm depths
Of an old man’s bed:
Walking through dark streets
Shivering with cold, thinking of
The soft warm bed she’d pushed me
From of with a final cuddled kiss
Before she snuggled back
Under the warm down duvet
So she was back asleep
Before I’d even left the room;
Stolen half nights with my Illicit
Blonde sweet lover girl
Leaving before the village awoke
So I wouldn’t be seen
As i slipped through the woods
And up the tree lined road
Back to the real world
Suffering the Guardroom banter
As I booked in and became
Once more a three figure number;
Time for a shower to wash away
The sweet smell of her love
Then uniformed and booted
The three day cycle began
Before I could once more
Slip quietly through the woods
Check the street carefully
Before I crept into her house
And back into her arms
And that soft sweet warm bed;
A love with no future
Stolen and finite
But the first sweet full love
Of a callow not yet man
And a sweet older woman
Compassionate kind and loving
Over almost before it began
Still fondly remembered
Across all those many passed years.
You always loved fireworks
By post script
A thunderous crack and bang right before lights of red, white, and blue lit up the sky.
So beautiful it brings a tear to my eye, and as it hits the ground it questions why.
You said you could watch fireworks all night, never wanting to say bye.
Beautiful lights that made the night seem like daytime but this was an oil painted sky.
Lights reminiscent of a great work of art making one have a greater appreciation for the who, what, where, when, and why’s.
That night we shot one extra for you, metaphorically the last good bye.
P.S. I’ll never forget the day you saw your first fireworks show, rest in peace my son. Now you’re watching fireworks in heaven so I know there is no need to cry.
6/9/16
(the following extrapolated
thought thread exercised,
NOT utilized to intimate
how Fats Domino belied,
and wowed a crowded house as-sized).
as a former ace procrastinator, i abhor
putting off doing what best ought
to get immediate attention bar
ring some extenuating dire circumstance,
sans mishap with flying car
pet case in point being unexpected a bomb
bin able crisis necessitating
hypothetical individual impossible
to remain calm
while in the process
(assisted with good ole mom)
to hoist self with one's own petard,
which emergency best warrant a re ward,
otherwise if fate doth NOT
require one to break
from ordinary business as usual
to enlist the "FAKE"
help of a grenadier,
who doth make
his/her livelihood
risking their life,
and limb without quake
king (obviously compensating bravery
as he/she doth stake
out mortal danger with adequate adorn
ing mortal kombat
with ample legal tender and/
or promising first born)
for unstinting mettle,
especially tolerating accompanying
martial baritone horn
player screech (like fingernails
scraping blackboard)
in close proximity - eliciting a scorn
ing glare from soldier spy
tinker tailor with a torn
smile while trained
special ops named Bjorn
incurs deadly hazard from one morn
to the next amidst adversity
shouldering care worn
Marine's motto semper fidelis,
which unnecessary loss of young life
predicated on add
age, viz being at the least,
a day late and dollar short egad
inadvertently dooming
princely valiant warmonger,
a mere stripling lad
whose mourning brings
heavy pallor of sad
ness, which imagined situation - aye
tangentially congruently analogous by
and by to the butterfly effect,
or sparrow's swan song i.e. die
destiny wrought, when one dost espy
a single occurrence no lie,
(the flickr ring, instagram
ming, kickstart ting well nigh
linkedin shutterfly of a butterfly)
say twerks catcher in the rye,
hence no matter how small, thee or thy
can change the course
of the universe forever,
no idea how nor why!
She had lived for ninety years.
Life had been a patchwork of promises;
some kept, many broken, all remembered.
Born one cold December morning when
the world dared to dream again.
Wicked war won at inexcusable cost;
thousands lost; gone and never to return.
A lesson learned? Not for long it seems.
They met while still at school.
Young love. First promise; he said he'd
make her his wife, spend his life in pursuit
of her happiness and they glowed with the
innocent flush of youthful exuberance.
Then he left her when the call to battle came.
He died on a beach in 1940 and she became
a widow before being a bride, and she cried,
inside and out for the rest of her days.
A faded photograph on her locker and in
her memory a youthful kiss, a lifetime missed,
for her heart died too with the loss of him.
She never married, carrying her grief to the grave.
Her sister had a son, a soldier too, and he survived.
A promise kept, but his son went to Afghanistan,
and was killed by the Taliban. Thankfully Lily never knew.
Broken promise at twenty two; he left a sweetheart
who wears his ring. They had a home, and hope of
happiness, all lost in the explosion of destruction.
Lessons learned? I don't think so, as soldiers die
and their women cry. All Lily's life languishing
in loss, and many more now count the cost.
And a baby cries; born one cold December morn'.
He sees his mother cry for she is grieving
for a father he will never know.......
and so it goes on, and so and so and so.
The grass is wet,
from dew...?
from tears...?
I must sit down, ..........
be close to you....
But, I don't care...the dew won't kill me...
But, what of tears? They can.......they do
and I will drown..........
I'll sit here in the cool, damp grass, and write to you
I'll write to you, .... as if you'll see it,....
As if you'll know my words for you
What else to do?....What else to do?
It's all so quiet now, so still and calm
Except for sparrows,..... and their songs
Can you hear,.... from where you are?
If they sing in silent chorus, but you can't hear it,
Tell me, tell me.......how to bear it?
I write this letter....
Where to send it?
Their eulogies began and ended,
They linger in the heartless wind
It's over now, how can it be?
It's lonely now, beneath the trees...
They've all gone home, we're here alone
They've carved your name into the stone
You lie here with me, but I'm so cold.
You promised to come back to hold me
You told me when we said goodbye...
You told me that you would survive
Will I? Will I?
A one-handed man carrying a basket full of water,
A blind-y-dumb coward in the soldier quarters.
A dwarf cannonic giant climbing the mountain,
A-day littlun fetching from the fountain.
A faithful politician leading by examples,
A notorious terrorist erasing his samples.
A faithful pope bethrot'd to seven wives,
A sentimentally raw hermit wherein corruption thrives.
Talking trees and howling ridges,
Skiing cows and fighting berries.
Clean,neat,raw,pleasant,bewitching blacks,
Singing,merrying,elated,straightened arcs;
These all will be in the end-time,
All absurdities in their prime.
Shall I relay a sidesplitting hoot from my “care-free” on campus fun phase?
It entails a laboratory session involving three mystic world colossal oafs.
One had an unerring penchant for Laurel and Hardy mishaps, the other this beautiful dreamer whose attention span rambled for miles.
a meandering focal point tourist with no yen for one spot or one task.
As for me the fault-prone narrator I had comic book deficits too.
Pulitzer Prize petty fog pinpoint, fastidious fat head by gum!
At the hearth of this tale is a chemistry prep that was doomed from an innocent outset.
It was aptly enough “Anodyne,” this soon to be splitting head bushfire.
From uproarious weighing scale howlers, to starter material gaffes, to say nothing of sequential missteps, Mount Everest blunders galore.
Our ill-fitting glassware threw tantrums, miscellaneous beaker’s burst dams, reactants rose up, a calamitous farce, they shed buckets of organic stuff down the sink.
For all my precision I seemed a right goof with this risible maximum brownie point fetish.
My beautiful dreamer close comrade who by turns Walter Mitty pale stand-in now immune to chaotic abandon at large.
That accident-prone other pal
would be every insurer’s worst nightmare.
Nearby class mates could barely restrain widespread glee at us laughing stock hapless quaint bunch.
The poor teacher in charge had a seizure, quite gormless, green faced and gobsmacked.
“I wonder what next can go wrong.”
“Quite frankly I shudder to think as you merry buffoons soldier on.”
This thunderstruck teacher was known as the “doyen of do it right down to the dottiest detail.”
After a humorous pause his eyeballs rotate in jocular mode then made a ginormous grand gesture.
“Put this jinx ridden self-destruct day in some tuck away memory file.”
“Write a one page report, say the gremlins prevailed and I’ll give you an average mark.”
“For goodness sakes don’t blow this offer like you’ve nearly blown
up my whole group.”
On an ironic note “doyen do it right” gave a brief safety course start of term.
It seemingly fell on deaf ears.
I’ll be blowed as my parents once said when life took a damned awful turn.
We three “Einsteins” in technical garb almost were, blowed that is!
Posted ; 11th January 2022