by Jenny Martin | Apr 15, 2009 | Poetry
Your Daddy’s off to his training, there’s a war on, you must not cry, they said when he left on a troop train. Training-war-train-do-not-cry baffled my three-year-old mind. Three years with a few brief encounters when he returned home on leave shrouded in battledress...
by Jenny Martin | Apr 15, 2009 | Poetry
Nineteen-fifteen silk postcard hand embroidered flowers and greeting To dearest Mother on your birthday. Pencilled message ‘Out with my pals got this hope you like it. Love from Tommy.’ Shells scream, ears sing; stars silent. Nineteen-sixteen silk postcard pink wild...
by Aki Atkinson | Apr 14, 2009 | Poetry
Shed not one tear for those Who wept their noble blood, Or for those who fell To death, far from home: Who saw heaven and Hell, In the flash of a shell, Do not let your cries join Those who died amongst Fellow men upon the field. Those who fell in trench and wire, And...
by Julia Whitehouse | Apr 14, 2009 | Poetry
Picking Petals The petals vulnerable and delicate were crushed with water droplets, They were battered by the wind and the rain, interminably damaged: dead, Those petals are my son: the wind and water, the war, The constant deep despair which my mind keeps me in...
by Rashi Joshi | Apr 13, 2009 | Poetry
While I lay wailing on the floor , With closed windows and tightly bolted doors ; Somehow , somewhere , the happiness lay dead , I looked at the mirror and shrieked with dread ; Where’s the old face gone , the delightfulness , the charm, And the grotesque face...
by Cliff Painter | Apr 13, 2009 | Poetry
The man sat. He coughed a lot. He told war stories. He had been a coal miner for decades. Before that he had served with quiet distinction In the Great War. He was the boy’s friend. The man, it was said, worked only when he could. ‘Could’, the boy heard people say,...
