The generals fry in their fat,

The spokesman spouts his usual junk;

The sergeant’s barking will fall flat,

The new recruit has trashed his bunk.

The rumpus at the front is still;

Noise of mortal combat ceases.

Exhausted soldiers, trained to kill,

Break their weapons into pieces.

They hug their foes and swap their hopes

Of lives soon filled with joy and art;

...

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I know that the truth about war

Is limbs blown off and bodies burned,

Though someone working for the law

May bang his polished desk and say

That he will leave no stone unturned,

And generals will bleat and pray

That ‘certain’ lessons must be learned.

The soldier, gasping with relief,

Will weep in buckets for his mates

And dream, discreetly, in his grief,

Of planting ...

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Close now. I think. It’s hard to tell sometimes.

War takes away perspective with its taste

Of danger, its relentless jabs of fear.

Yes, we can see them. Just across the field,

Behind the trees but not quite out range.

Easy prey for our telescopic sights.

They’ll probably never know what hit them;

Two of them are down, the rest run away.

Bloody cowards, just like we wou...

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The war is sucking up our splendid youth.

They’re racing to the front; they won’t come back.

Each town and village starts to empty out,

As friends and classmates go on the attack.

They’re fighting for our dignity and state

Of freedom and of happiness pursued,

But consequences, each one plainly knows,

Could be unmentionably vile and rude.

In these now quiet streets the ...

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I wonder if those who lay the mines down

Stay put and wait for victims to approach,

Or, with a surreptitious grin, retreat.

As for the victims, no imagining

The horror of their plight will bring them back.

The miner and mined have done their duty.

In moral terms, they seem so far apart:

One bad, one innocent. But consider.

They are both under orders not to think:

Playthi...

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Strange feeling, standing next to this felled tree,

A victim of a violent assault.

Not long ago, these leaves were vigorous

In the reflection of a sparkling sun.

Green dominated, but entertainments

Of all shapes and styles delighted this Earth.

Now brown and shrivelled, they slip existence,

As they accompany their own decline.

We know that feeling too. The lynched bodies,

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A dead tree is sad, but it stands, present,

Benevolent, useful, still in the game.

It has nobility, even when charred

By flames, in the overheat of wartime.

Dead people though, perish in every sense;

Their limp remains plead for quick disposal.

All that’s left is once-removed: memories,

Letters, film of their pomp and garden games,

The sly maintenance of reputations.

Tre...

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