Read and leave comments (2)

Daily States of Pain

I never thought for a moment of my future,

Never knew how much I would suffer,

I go through life trying so hard

But disability always gets the better,

Always stops me in my tracks from progressing.

I was keen for life, keen to explore

Different places that as a kid I only dreamed,

But my tours of the Persian Gulf

Have ce...

Read and leave comments (0)

The war was all around

And the city was small.

The doctors laughed at him,

He was not like de Gaulle.

Well, may be the trumpeter?

OK, trumpeter, as a trumpeter!

Being a trumpeter is so good,

At least you don’t have to bow.

The bullets whistle over your head,

As the winds sometimes blow.

But why it happened like that?

For a boy ...

Read and leave comments (0)

Read and leave comments (2)

I was visiting a memorial to my late father's first cousin killed in Ireland nearly a century ago.  

Next to it was a headstone that told a desperately sad tale of another's loss. 

................................................................................................................................................................................................

Hear...

Read and leave comments (7)

Read and leave comments (0)

I have my own little piece of the world.
Sure, it has its problems, but nothin’ too much.
It has its pleasures and there’s more than enough.
And I’ll share them with you; I will share them with you.

So, put down that rifle, and put down that gun.
Let’s take back those words that hatred begun.
Let’s tear down those icons that make us ignore
The cries of our own, the cries of our ...

Read and leave comments (1)

                                   Contents of War

War, is a strange parody of life,

You live it as a soldier;

Beckoned by power be you brave

Or a coward,

It is much fought over this,

This human debacle that

Never relents,

Never goes away to tired

Quarters of history,

Much fought over by

Pacifist and Politician alike,

     Always a bar...

Read and leave comments (0)

Nuclear Cradle Song

Bye, baby, bye

Cry, baby, cry

You cry so do I.

My tears have all run dry.

So cry, baby, cry

Cry, baby, cry

Bye, baby, bye

No use in asking why

Our dreams fell from the sky.

So cry, baby, cry, baby, cry.

Bye, baby, bye

Cry, baby, cry

No one to hear you cry.

No one to hear us try.

Oh, cry, baby, cry,...

Read and leave comments (6)

None of the class could put their uniform

on in under a minute, fit their gas masks

and speak in a BBC accent. Two ran off

to explore World War Two but got lost

in the Blitz. Boys cooed at machine gun

nests and gagged at the taste of canned beef,

mistaking it for mustard gas. Everyone

laughed at the tour guide's rendition

of "Oh! It'...

Read and leave comments (3)

There are Improvised Explosive Devices

Stuffed with cocaine fuelled erections

Scattered across London’s skyscape.

Idealised landscapes of home flicker before sanded eyes

As the sun seared flesh of maimed soldiers

Lies a long way from home.

And young war veterans fly wheelchair bound

Back to Blighted - To the arms of their mothers,

And occasionally lovers,

...

Read and leave comments (1)

SHE HAS THE ANSWERS

It troubled her how it had come to this –

she knew each detail, each action, each thought –

but still it troubled her.

As she fell to her knees, her woollen skirt became sodden

with freshly fallen snow.

Tears streamed down her cheeks as she wept

for her lost love, gone forever from this strife-torn world.

Soon she would do the ulti...

Read and leave comments (0)

SNIPER

Sitting patiently atop his tree camouflaged

against the enemy, the sniper waits.

For three days and three nights he has waited

to do his duty for Imperial Japan.

Along the trail walks the enemy. Alert and ready

but not looking up, for this is where the sniper is,

waiting, watching, ready right now.

Levelling his gun, he takes careful aim.

T...

Read and leave comments (3)

FIGHTER PILOT

So you are a fighter pilot in one of today’s latest jets.

Tell me what it is like to fly, to fight and to die in the air?

All of the crushing g-forces and dizzying changes

of direction happening all at once.

I bet that there’s no glory in your battles,

only pain, mutilation and death.

But this is your game, an aerial ballet

of chess wher...

Read and leave comments (1)

One step ahead of Imperial Japanese forces, we were kicked out of the Dutch East Indies fleeing for our lives. We escaped in Dutch Air Service Dornier 24 flying boats and others ending up at Broome, Australia. Free for now from the marauding Jap Zero fighters, they can’t catch us here!

Our Dornier is about to depart to sanctuary in southern Australia, we’re in the...

Read and leave comments (0)

ALMOST ASHES

A room, just a room. Feel the sense of history

here, heavy as lead and as poignant as pain.

Aspects come into focus, heavy thick carpets,

waxed English tables. Silence. Total.

A view on a room, from the doorway after.

What went on here? What decisions were made?

History’s biggest gamble, to fail paid in blood

and men and tears.

To suc...

Read and leave comments (0)

LOST SOULS

The crime is with the leaders, you caused the death of thousands,

destroyed two cities. Cursed your generation so it became the guinea pig,

the atomic generation. You all glow in the dark, legacy lasting to my life.

Now more have the bomb, ten thousand times bigger than the Hiroshima firecracker,

that destroyed your city. Old people walk happily down t...

Read and leave comments (0)

Read and leave comments (4)

SENT

Sent out in our steel coffins to hunt enemy ships now the siege of Leningrad is broken, into the Baltic for some payback. Doing our duty for the Motherland in the Great Patriotic War, against the Nazi’s.

In the Devil’s own submarine, lucky 13. S13 proven in battle with the Finns some years before, that time they nearly sank her but failed. Repaired, she prowls the small inlan...

Read and leave comments (0)

MISSING

Hurricane fighter plane dives through clouds towards the ground,

he goes down through the thick grey murk, no one can see him or knows

where he is going.

His wingmen landed some time ago and still there is no trace of him.

Is he gone, his plane so many smashed pieces of metal or burnt ash?

The dogfight was fast and swift with many planes turning and r...

Read and leave comments (2)