Bafflled how he came to be a pauper, he thought,

Tramp, hobo, undeserving poor, me!

An ex-serviceman, still with an upright back,

Thing is: he never really arrived home. Did he?. 

Not a real sort of family home; 

Belfast, The Falklands, Belize, Operation Desert Storm

Are with him every day.

Like many men who wore the uniform, Jim is reluctant to see a doctor

"I'll be reet" he says.

Where he served there were No-go. No-Irish. No Brits areas:

The Falls, Free Derry, Shankhill, South Armagh.

Where the owner of the Armalite was the power.

The Sally army bloke, wakes him, tells him  

"Yeah, a room, y'know, home-cooked food,"

In his head he's already out on the street again,

Not stuck in a room to drain the life out of him.

And anyway, she'd  moved out  decades ago

Wanted to settle down, build up some memories,

Kids.

He wished he could escape from this.

PTSD the nurse had said.

Don't know what that is.

Images he has in his head, still massively a-flame 

And yeah, so what, a few years earlier he was a hero.

Now, he's been told by the bloke from the Legion,

That he's being sued for obeying orders

Using a gun.

Plenty of unknown soldiers, he thinks,

Some take to the drink, others turn the gun on themselves

His brain is a-flame with all he knows and has witnessed

His leg is a-flame where he'd been shot. 'Bastard.'

He has layers over his heart

Down there, there are more levels,

Like the medals he once wore,

Gone, sold, lost, stolen.