Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Mar 2015
after some grey days
comes the sun
   summer heat
spectacle on the Seine

to commemorate

"La Route de l'Armada"
a fleet for tourists
that never was

yet nice to watch
   nevertheless
with fireworks
   & stately masts
sails folded orderly
decks scrubbed
the crews all smiles
ready to answer
   all the children's questions

in between
gray & inaccessible
some men-of-war
of more contemporary make

among them
   somewhat tarnished
one single ship
that really carried
allied soldiers
in its sightless hull
on that gray morning

and suddenly
   if only for a moment
you smell the sweat
   of fearful courage
hear ammunition
   click into magazines
the waves break dull
with hollow sound
amidst the crashes
   of firework artillery
that splits the waters
upward from the ground
This is about a show of ships commemorating, sort of,  the landing of the Allies on D-Day in World War II on the coast of France
Walter W Hoelbling
Written by
Walter W Hoelbling  Austria & Spain & UK & US
(Austria & Spain & UK & US)   
2.6k
   Brian Payamps
Please log in to view and add comments on poems