Lay me doon in the caul caul groon
Whaur afore monie mair huv gaun
Lay me doon in the caul caul groon
Whaur afore monie mair huv gaun

It was silent. His body sunk into the earth.
His soul long gone from there. He had died
A gun upon his arms.

When they come a wull staun ma groon
Staun ma groon al nae be afraid

He had died with a home that his dream would
live on.

Thoughts awe hame tak awa ma fear
Sweat an bluid hide ma veil awe tears

Later they had told us he had died with courage
and valor.

Ains a year say a prayer faur me
Close yir een an remember me

The shots continue he fell by the
tenth.

Nair mair shall a see the sun
For a fell tae a Germans gun

A ******* grasped in his stone
cold hand

Lay me doon in the caul caul groon
Whaur afore monie mair huv gaun

He saw a line of faces, brown, black
and white. Some were smiling others,
crying

Lay me doon in the caul caul groon
Whaur afore monie mair huv gaun

His body sunk into the cold, wet ground
As God opened his arms, for a boy
drenched in blood.

Whaur afore monie mair huv gaun*

A group waited in the wings. Soldiers
from many places. Who fought to keep
their shores safe.

And as they marched home,
Hollow from the victory of war
Only those who returned were welcomed,
Despite desperate eyes searching
For one more face
And reluctant ears intent
On not hearing another name on that list,
That long, long list.

The lights on the Welsh coastline shine
Her whiskey days are full of ink
& broken milk bottles, a grief so hidden
it’s barely there to be read as her plight
The Army took her boys & never
gave them back but she only ever
cries when she’s chopping onions at night
& reading the obituaries in the newspapers
at night she prays to Angels up on high
but never goes to Church on Sundays
not since the Vicar told her it was
all for the best & they had done their bit
the country should be proud of them
-she finds no comfort in such things

“Here’s your morning PSA,
Laced with saccharine and anaesthetic,
Unfortunately the missiles are on their way,
So leave the sick and try not to panic,
Ignore the hysteria, and those calling your name,
Avert your eyes as the world sets aflame,
We apologise for keeping this from you,
Secret for all of these years,
But please keep in mind, though we’ll aim for your rescue,
Death is the least of your fears
This will be our last transition,
I’m afraid the president must catch his flight,
You may wait to hear from us but until then,
Goodbye, goodluck and goodnight.”

We were the PVC plastic barbie dolls,
Waiting to be burned alive,
Unlucky enough to live,
We woke up to an absence of we,
No Nevada left to test in,
So I’m a model mannequin,
Melt me down,

Tick-Tick-Tick,
The light was white and empty,
Tick-Tick-Tick,
My madness steeped in silence
Tick-Tick-Tickety,
Geiger is telling me to run,
Tickety-Tickety-Tickety,
But it’s no use now,

I threw up on Monday,
Tuesday, I choke back fallout,
Ignore the bubbles when it hits my skin,
On Wednesday, my gums blink bright red,
Thursday I know I am all alone because the wind has ceased to blow,
And Friday I realise I am not,

They came with rubber masks,
Silicone,
Respirators and coils of filters,
We both had ******* eyes,
But neither of us saw people reflected in them,
I counted three,
Alpha, Beta, Gamma,
One smiles by exhaling clean air,
Reaches out a hand across the barren wasteland,
Fingers tipped with lead and tells me:
“There’s a prize for the last standing.”

I am not ionised,
So I bruise every time they touch me,
These guides through plagues of acid rain,
The graveyard of monuments stripped bare by a world of rot,
My hair falls out as I breathe dead air,
I don’t remember what PSA stands for,
I don’t remember my name,
I bleed sand and the echo of a failed civilisation,
But with heavy breathing and a muffled voice,
Gas masks filtering what used to keep me alive,
I wonder if there is anything behind those masks at all,
I know there is nothing behind mine,
None of us are human anymore,
And we haven’t been for quite some time,

Together, we watch the sky rain black ash.

He’s gone away forever,
Mother says he’ll be back soon,
But it’s going to be just like dad.
He’s been away since June.

It’s hard to hold back tears
When mother speaks his name
I falter upon telling her
That he’ll never be back again

The night before he went
He sat down by my bed
“You take good care of mother”
That’s the last thing that he said.

He went to war out of hatred
Which blurred his sense of love
For those he held so sacred.
And now he sits above.

With light shall glow,
The dark shall blow,
This time has come to pass.
When love and war,
Is no more,
In one big final blast.

They lay on Normandy.
Two hundred miles away, the empty shells of humans
Who lie below the streets
Felt the poison that lurked above.

They shuffled out of the underground,
Boarding trains and ships like corpses
And dropping bombs from miles above.

A little French boy is spared.
His brother whispers “Bon courage,”
As the rest of the family are taken out back
And shot like mad dogs.

Twenty years later, he stands on the beach
With his young wife
Watching their sons roll and play in the sand.

His tongue tastes a warm salt
That couldn't come from the ocean.
All he can taste from the ocean is blood.

I can see my grandfather clearly
With tears falling down his face
As his mother shuts the piano.
“There will be no music,” she says quietly.

She is an immigrant
And I wonder if she questions the choice
That brought her son to a country where he might lay down his life
For strangers, four thousand miles away.

I can feel him now
Hiding in the apple trees,
High above the others.
He is in Sainte-Mère-Église, and there are enemies below.

And now I take them in my arms
Cradling them like children
“Je vous embrasse, les deux,”
And I lie down on the edge of the ocean at Normandy.

I exhale and hold them close.
The sun is shining, and I do not cry;
It is nothing but salt and water to me.