Ah! Men

              Aargh! Men

Armed men
  Harmed men
   Jarred men
     Marred men
      Scarred men

Scared men

****** men

Their men
Your men
Our men
                                                        
                                                           AMEN

©pofacedpoetry – Billy Reynard-Bowness (2018) – all right’s reserved

The screaming echoes of hell
The echoes of screaming shells
The shattering of wailing echoes
The smattering of human shells.

For decency?
For peace?
For honour?
For humanity?

If? When we fail yet again; once more
Go us into the sea; leave flesh ridden shores
Let briny drink try wash tired hands clean
If there be sea enough to flush man’s grimy pores.

No more!
No more!
No more!
No more!

Or - send us back to the sea; amen
Let the war-weary Earth start over again
Give blood rusty soil time to drink afresh
Forget the blind cruelty; the indifference of men.

©pofacedpoetry – Billy Reynard-Bowness (2018) – all right’s reserved

Here, and over here -
The fortunate sons

Those who made it home
To fields and hills of native tongue
In the soil their people toiled
- They listen quietly when we come


There, and over there -
Beneath crossed lines too many

Still - they man the trenches
Along the Marne and Somme
Below the woods of Belleau
And the forest of Argonne

No sonnets in a foreign language
Rendered where they languish -
The distant rest far and away
In a cold November grave


We should remember
Here and there
The old lie -

And the young.

r ~ 11/11/14