That jangling tune 
told of sweet times ahead
Children playing with hosepipes 
on hot summer streets
and gleaming bikes ridden
across freshly swept pavements
How the ice cream van 
sparked joy and hope
O, the heady idyl 
of childhood…

Now the ice cream van 
toils a different purpose
macabre and tuneless
its contents chilling
The limbs of children
parts of mothers
Lifeless figures...

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By Sixes

With this book we have to make a difference

The weight of worry and seriousness is huge

This has not happened before not this way

And very soon all things could happen

They try to control it but can they?

How do you control so many soldiers?

Along with the other shooters

Planes ships launchers tanks and more

Myself I've never felt this way

Except briefly in t...

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Vivid Orange

Sky black burnt like sack cloth by the fires

Endless fires vivid orange flames

Always orange as is the screams

Now invisible for they are dead

Bodies black ash blown about

Wind whipped up by the flames

Orange wind this way and that

Like the war win lose win lose

On and on till it simply ended

All dead nobody left to fight

Pull the trigger dro...

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At the start it was not so

That we did know the stone to throw,

To kill the beasts and men like us,

To think it fine to strike the blow

That spread man's blood upon the dust.

How was it that death entered in?

Cruel killing, how did it begin?

Did not the Tree of Life stand there,

In God's garden where was no sin.

In God's garden where all was fair.

...

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The Bayonet In The Shed

He put it there in forty nine,

in a woodworm riddled drawer,

wrapped it in a greasy rag.

A remnant from the war.

On top of it he laid his medals,

nothing more was said

until the day my father

took the bayonet from the shed.

We had pestered many times

and he had said ‘perhaps’

when we asked him if he’d killed

any Krauts or any Ja...

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Thanks to Patricia & Stefan for getting me thinking about this topic again.......

Animals

this lion was sat there

being a lion

when a man

who beat his wife and kids

shot him

through the head

and used his fur

for a rug

this alligator was sat there

being an alligator

when a man

who raped a child

thrust a spear

int...

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