Training. 

Remember your training!

When the bow ramp drops, charge!

Pull the bolt back, forward, & aim

Pull the trigger, make your enemy quiver!

 

Stop shaking! 

It's just a day at the beach!

There's vomit on me uniform. Is it mine?

Might be Bill's next to me. He's seasick 

Pull the bolt back, forward, & aim

Pull the trigger, make your enemy quiver!

 

Mam's b...

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The Weeping Angel

 

She passed this way and tended to our pain,

administered our wounds and eased our fears

telling us that we would be home again.

stayed by our beds and whispered in our ears,

 

She was gentle, but never weak or frail,

Remember Nellie Spindler from Wakefield

the only woman killed at Passchendaele

An angel weeps for her in Flanders Field

 

Once...

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There’s something quite rotten in Britain,

Rights Human are now being rewritten,

A journos wrong question,

Brings fascist attention,

He’s arrested and, with prison smitten.

So much then, for pride and remembrance,

Behold now, their hopes in sad embers;

The lobby has paid,

Our forbears betrayed,

Hate thrives now, and it fears no hindrance.

Uilleam Ó Ceallaigh 28th Augu...

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Borrow against your future days

that this moment ever lives,

for what such credit takes away

the joy of now forgives.

 

We cannot touch what has gone

nor conjure what's to come,

our memories may live on and on

what's lost might yet be won.

 

The silent harbour once a throng

with hope and fearful men,

sits peaceful now and has done long

for what was done ...

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These dunes have been draped with flesh,

some on summer days surrendering to lovers

some under the gun by blood brothers.

The days between then and now are in the sand,

each footprint, each drop of joy and blood still here.

Children rush the shoreline chased by foamy waves.

We built monuments and carved men’s names

where beautiful children share happy games.

 

Beyon...

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Futility (apologies to Wilfred Owen)

 

Forget, forget,

Her rallying cry;

Forget, forget

The reason why;

Forget, forget

Our fathers lied,

Was it for this the clay grew tall?

—O what made fatuous sunbeams toil

To break earth's sleep at all?

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/38ea2e27d86aac206fb6bcbeab84dec1c4d15fda/3_0_3030_1819/master/3030.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=...

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They are old now, almost beyond age;

Pushed around, pinned into wheelchairs.

Though chaperoned, they seem unclaimed.

They hold up placards, give a wave

And do their best to summon up a grin,

Before we spirit them toward the beaches

Where, nearly eighty years ago,

They put their young lives on the line

To keep the locals and unborn safe.

We should salute and honour them,

...

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https://www.writeoutloud.net/public/blogentry.php?blogentryid=127856

 

There’s a flower, that’s for Remembrance;

Poppy of Hope in the rat-race gutter,

Some ego trip by town hall plastic patriots,

Aimed to set our hearts a-flutter,

Whilst sentimental platitudes they parrot;

It might as well be on the Brighton Line,

As into oblivion it’s daily smeared and ground,

By t...

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For those who sleep from battles lost

And paid, for us, the ultimate cost

 

For all who came back from war

Forever scarred by what they saw

 

The lucky ones, 

      so they say

They got to see 

       another day

 

But their friends who fell

At the toll of death's bell 

Still haunt their dreams

Upon the fields of screams

 

Where poppies now dwel...

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This poppy was recently made for me as an impromptu gift, by a young lady who had been researching her family tree, and had found that a male relative had served in the RAF in WW2. I will always treasure it.

 

I wrote the following probably ten years ago.

 

On Armistice Day, (which, by now, all should know,

Marks the end of World War Number One),

I remembered Them, as I sat...

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As the yellow mist

rolls across the fields

of slaughter

The young man thinks

Of  his unborn daughter

How would she have looked?

How would she have grown?

Would her heart have been full

From the love he had shown?

Would her smile have been his?

Would her eyes have been blue?

And shimmer in sunlight

like fresh morning dew?

 

Yet, he knew not her mother

Fo...

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The unknown soldier beckons

 

Don't forget, don't forget

 

The lost, who somewhere lie

 

Don't forget, don't forget

 

The grieving family ties

 

Don't forget, don't forget

 

The defeated & the broken

 

Don't forget, don't forget

 

with mental scars unspoken

 

Don't forget, don't forget

 

The veteran in the street

 

Don't forget...

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The Unknown Soldier’s Prayer

 

I could be your husband, father, son.

The lost bones of another pointless war.

A flag to drape across my resting place,

transported from a distant, hostile shore.

 

I could have been a tinker, tailor, thief ,

lying here for a century and more,

those passing trades mean little to me - now

the angry guns have relinquished their roar.

 

...

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A WWI remembrance poem

(First published online for Northern Life magazine 2018)

 

It creaked as he left:

The old garden gate

He’d promised to fix it

But now it was too late

 

Tearful in the doorway

His mother cries out,

‘Do it when you’re back, Billy!’

And of this she has no doubt

 

He waves,

And off to glory are the swathes

Of boys, and men in their pr...

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Elegy For A Ghost

 

Some say ghosts are chilling things

Ethereal and fleeting

But they’re not

 

They are the empty chair

The pint not bought in a round

The hiss at the end of a telephone line

The deleting of a mobile number

 

They are the sad spaces

That once held you

On the terraces

At the bar

In the conversation

 

Ghosts are sad things

They h...

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In Memoriam

 

The gravestones in this place are wet with tears

Of children, wives and husbands who have stood

Beside dark holes that swallow up their fears

Replacing ice water where once flowed blood.

November skies are grey and hold no lights,

The flowers flattened in a winter gale

That whips away dark thoughts the widow fights

To keep hidden behind her mourning veil.

...

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A Poppy In Winter

 

November mists come down in shrouds of grey

and folk remember, with their poppies red,

the loss of sixteen million war dead

and how the guns fell silent on this day.

So who are you to deem to have a say

on whether I should honour those who bled

by crimson colours? – or perhaps, instead,

in remembrance there is another way.

For I would guess that mo...

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41 million casualties since the war began

John Condon among them, died like a man

He was only 18 when he met his demise

Ypres, Belgium he finally closed his eyes

 

We shall remember

 

He wasn’t the youngest to serve in this plight

In Serbia Momčilo Gavrić claimed that right

Promoted to corporal instead of being at school

At eight years old he was the armies fuel.

 

...

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Life's a game of take & give 
Just tell me how did it come to this? 
They walked their way into the abyss 
But I see no flowers, on the bridge? 

The laughs, the screams  
The night, far from your dreams 
A city bows as it continues to live 
But I see no flowers, on the bridge?

The sirens call and the thunders rolls
In a stranger, solace unfolds
How can your story ever be told?
But n...

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Gave Me Up To Tears

 

"And all my mother came into mine eyes
And gave me up to tears."
— William Shakespeare, Henry V

 

The air tastes of mashed potatoes

When she looks into your eyes

And you look back at the fear and hurt

And she says she’s sorry for dragging you here

And you tell her it’s nothing

Even though you were complaining

That very same thing on the drive h...

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Red Poppies On An Autumn Day

 

Never forgotten – here to stay,

a symbol of the hurt and pain

where young men will forever lay.

 

The old man sells and we will pay

to wear a token for the slain -

never forgotten – here to stay.

 

Would they have approved? Who can say

If what was lost was worth the gain.

Red poppies on an autumn day

 

They had little choice ...

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a peaceful warrior

 

next week

I’ll make a mark

to show my choice

and there will be

no hate

no fear

no injustice

In that decision

 

it will be

for the future

for the greater good

 

it will not be

for brutal killers

bigots

racists

terrorists

from over there

or right here

 

it will be everything

but that

 

it will be

fo...

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Somewhere in between

the waking and the dream,

I can feel you close to me.

 

Just before times hands

reshape the desert sands,

I can feel you reach for me.

 

In the blink of tear stained eyes,

watching weary to the skies,

I can see you cry for me.

 

In the breaking of the dawn,

in the dew upon the lawn,

I can see you smile for me.

 

In the bright ray...

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Wounded.

Black bullet hole wound
blooms red November petals.
Blood and remembrance.

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Your touch still lingers on my skin like the warm yet cold breeze of the wind,

 

Your kiss heavy leaves an imprint on my lips like the moist rain that steadily drips,

 

Your laugh still gives me the bees in my gut like hiding from the storm in that little hut,

 

Your body close to mine in a gentle embrace like the love surrounding our little space,

 

Your voice calming an...

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Marching on together through the fire and the flame, Sent to war as boys, but they became men this day,
Heroes of a nation, who would have knew
That they risked their lives for everyone, valiant and true.   The darkness of the battlefield, will blind them all their lives
The images that they have seen shall remain upon their minds
Yet in this hour of war, they sheltered us with their ...

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But one single bullet, from barrel to throat,
Choked and opened the wounds of the world,
Unfurled in the seat of a phaeton,
Played on like the most tragic of tragedies,
Greek in essence but eastern in substance,
As Sophie wilts in the lap of Austria,
A single shot through the heart of a continent,
The blood racing fast to the carriage beneath,
Signals the start of relentless war lines,
It...

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In the mist,

amazed at the helpless loneliness,

sadness was present to remember

especially when I loved you and now intend to deny

 

full of rain and wind, turn to screams your memories:

perhaps imagining that you understand how I feel

 

How I miss you!

I was not the cause of the pain ...

And I'll wait until it dries the dew;

until you have no m...

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Azrael

 

In hushed and reverent tones

we watched the daylight fade

until it winked out

in a final spark of twilight.

Heads bowed

we felt them slip away

all their bright energy

dissipating in the growing gloom.

 

Tears then

corroding and eating

at our souls

until there were

no more

saline teeth

chewing at

our memories.

 

...

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He punches at a name in stone

as if the warmth of knuckle and fist

could penetrate the cold,

a brother’s arm plunge deep

beyond the gilt

to find its home

curled up in sleep

upon an ocean bed

connect with flesh and bone.

 

 

 

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What is the purpose, why the pain

to live in hope and die in vain?

As mourning turns love lost -  to blame,

and man repeats the vengeful game.

 

For lessons missed in histories pay

for dogma we shall die today,

for in our words and deeds we sow

a deathly seed we do not know.

 

So do we tar religions door

or those who send us off to war?

Who ...

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Young man - mark them marching by,

Their medals catch the light.

Look and hold your head up high,

You'll see no finer sight.

 

Old men passing in their pride

Were once as young as you.

Now - as then - they're side by side,

But now they're growing few.

 

And should one chance to catch your eye,

Young man, don't look away;

In far-off fields their co...

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                                                                 I Veteran

 

 

I try,

            Ten maybe fifteen years in a row to attend

It has been! I walk past at speed,

Anxiety rising within a throat of hurt,

My jaw clenched as I negotiate the crowd –

But my stride is slowed and I catch glimpses

Of the veterans in uniform,

And my tears are checked ...

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And I would breathe life

into those lips that once kissed,

colour to the face that smiled,

bathe those sightless eyes with tears,

hydrate the ravaged corners of your mind

 

And if the drip of all my anguish left you still,

empty shell of all you were, no more

I would care for you in death

just as I cared for you before,

gently thread your hair with tender...

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Lest – lest, pay heed lest

we for-get we are the best;

lose sight of Old England’s story

one of endless power and glory

blood-and-gutsy, primal, gory;

triumph in each foreign land.

 

Might - might, ours by right

just remember might is right!

None surpass the English Army

foes like Hitler – all are barmy

same for Mullah, same for Swami;

Christ is E...

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undercurrents

 

I only glimpse it now, so far away, but bright and clear.

The rapture of  a fading world - another place, some other year.

Those nights of shattered moonlight strewn on marbled seas,

where frangipani whispers were caresses on the breeze.

 

From the shadow of the palms I watched you dance

the tideline, shed your silks, and with one glance

you robbed my soul and beckoned wit...

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Shadowmen

 

In those final quickening hours

we sat, and weighed the snare-drum rhythm

of our failing hearts, sucking warmth from

close-pinched cigarettes and old memories.

Our sergeant paced, checked his watch for lies,

and ignored the muffled sobs disguised as coughs

-  his whistle hanging heavy as a prayer.

 

Seconds fell like dominoes, and in the dark,

kisses fell on photographs an...

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The Gift 

                                                                                                                      

“You have his hands” they say.

Blunt, broad, and strong;

the rounded nails and heavy palms, his grip.

Some memory, stored within each line,

each fingertip, each scar, from half a life away.

Old-leather hard with work and age;

weather-carved and worn with every s...

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