A poem for St Andrew’s Day

Let the flag fly high,

Let the lochs shine in the sun.

The heather blowing on barren moors,

Let them see.

 

Let the glorious bagpipes play,

Oh flower of Scotland!

The tribal music,

Let them hear.

 

Let the scotch broth boil,

and the angus beef roast,

And the porridge be warm,

Let them taste.

 

Let the tartans be woollen,

and the sgian-dbuhs be sharp,

and the flag of Scotland be smooth and silky,

Let them touch.

 

Let the heather be fragrant,

Let the highlands smell of sweet morning air,

and the Flower of Scotland be aromatic,

Let them smell.

 

They are coming on the train,

and on the aeroplane,

husbands, wives, brothers, daughters,

to celebrate St. Andrews Day!!!

 

 

An orange.

An orange.  An almost perfect sphere, but the orange leather dips when it reaches the top, into a small green grey pip, which is angular and sticks into the porous orange skin.  It’s shiny, and smooth.   When one cuts into the orange, a heavenly smell pervades and the orange is now a series of wedges with a layering of orange skin, white zest, and the juicy body of the fruit.  White pips are embedded in the flesh like small bullets.

I bite it.  The succulent juices flow down my throat and the cold sharp juices sting the bitten flesh around my fingers.

When I finish it, the shell is left like a carcass on the plate, shaped like a tangerine coloured boat.

At the memorial.

 

We used to laugh and joke and smile,

We used to march in two straight files,

carrying our guns on our backs,

on the way to war.

 

We are the missing, the dead, the killed,

We hunched in trenches with hands chilled.

Snow falling and ice in our weapons,

we tried to fight the enemy.

 

Our names are inscribed on your monuments,

like the names of the long forgotten ancients.

We are remembered for one short day a year,

a small fraction of the 1566 days we spent at war.

 

The red overflows from the orifices of stone,

All our names listed, we are to you are unknown.

The brass bands play, the trumpets march,

and we are remembered.

 

 

 

 

Memories: A monologue

INT- A warm 1940s kitchen.  There is a man of middle age sitting on a chair.   He wears an ARP warden armband and hat, and also a gas mask box.  His name is William Taylor.  SFX- Bombs falling a long way away.

William: 

They’re coming for us.  Oh God.  They’re coming.  I wished it would never happen, last time was too terrible.  What is this God?!  (he shouts) But that’s the problem.  Since the Great War- since then… (he stutters, filled with fear.)  I doubt if anyone is watching over us.  (he says this fast and as if he is terrified that there is no God.)  I just want it to be over.  Look at me.  I’m 44.  I should have had a life, but I have no life.  (without any emotion, matter of fact.)  Not since- I can’t talk about that day.  I’ve never been able to talk about it… Oh God!  I wished we’d never gone to the recruiting office that fateful Sunday afternoon… That sun was still smiling… Funny to think it was the same sun that frowned on us in the Passchendaele. (he laughs, a hollow, dry laugh) We all went, all of us.  Every single one.  We thought it would be ‘jolly’.  We thought it would be a laugh. (he says this cynically)  We thought it would all be over by Christmas.  Stupid.  So stupid!  HOW COULD WE BE SO STUPID! But that day- that day… I suppose I’ll have to talk about it though, one day…  We were in the Passchendaele, as scared as anyone, the three of us.  We were Johnson, Jones and… and Taylor, that was me, that is me.  (as if unsure) We ran out on the whistle, and the enemy guns… they fired. Good god, I can still hear it. (he closes his eyes tightly and jerks, as if gunshots are being fired, and he is reacting to them)  I was in the middle… my two comrades on either side… The shots, they fired… and I could only rescue one of them. (he says this somewhat hysterically, as if h wants to get the narration of events done quickly) I dived to my right, and tried to save Johnson, and Jones got shot, died. Right on the spot.  My best friend.  But then, when I dived on Johnson, he fell on barbed wire, and it ripped him open. (there is a loss of hysteria) It killed him.  I killed him. (he says this in a matter of fact tone) I killed both of them. (with vindication) Johnson and Jones, my two best friends.   I killed them.  There was a man the other day who was arrested in Lewisham for stabbing another man.  (his face hardens) I’m as bad as him.  I should hand myself in.  They should take my life.  I should die.  But they can’t take a non-existent life.  I have no life.  I used to be a contender for the Olympic gold medal.  I used to be concentrated on that goal.  I used to want it with all my soul.  But now… the only thing I want is to have my nephew- he’s fighting over France in the RAF- I just want him to be safe, safe and sound. (almost crying, he takes down a small photo in a frame of his nephew from the side. A tear rolls down his face, which he wipes away angrily)  I have no interest in my work, or in any hobbies.  I look forward to the wireless.  I look forward to hugging my nephew again.  That’s it.  My life died when my friends died, in the mud of the Passchendaele, all those years ago.  I visited the graves, row on row, so much marble.  So much loss.  I only wonder, for every dead soldier, how many men like me must there be?  Bereft of life, of hope, of dream?

(There is an air raid siren.  SFX- Three bombs going off.  William picks up his bag and trudges out to the air raid shelter, which is in his garden, but he trudges unenthusiastically, as if he doesn’t care if he is bombed.)

I’ll not budge an inch

They want me to go.  The eviction notice came through my door yesterday, an innocuous looking piece of white paper, in a pure white envelope.  I opened the letter, and pulled out the letter inside, like a sword out of a sheath.  An eviction notice is a sort of weapon I thought, at least, it is to me.  It’s dangerous, and  it can destroy someone’s life, as it has mine.  Only I’m not going to let them.  I’ll not budge an inch.  They can pull me kicking and screaming out of the door for all I care.

As I read the letter, my stomach was squishing like a sponge in panic and I felt myself turning hot, then cold.  What am I to do?  I haven’t been a bad tenant, by any means and I’ve done nothing wrong.  I can’t have done, I’ve only been living in this flat for 3 months.  I got evicted from my last flat.  And my last.  And my last.  I’m always being pushed around but now it’s going to stop.  I’m just going to sit on this chair and wait for next week.  Thursday next week.  That’s when the letter says I’m going to get evicted, but I’m not going to pander to their expectations.  I’m not going to pack up my stuff into bin bags and take all my pictures down, find a new flat and get a moving truck.  No way.  This chair is much more comfortable.

But how am I to survive, if they do forcibly carry me out?  On the street, barely with a job, and with two small children?  Never.  I wouldn’t be able to do it.  Maybe I should budge?  Is it a good idea?  I guess it wouldn’t hurt to try to find a flat, nearby.  There must be one decent private landlord somewhere in Liverpool.  People think I must be crazy, that I should get a council flat.  But they can still evict me, can’t they, and the waiting list is so long, like, 12 years or something!  It’s Saturday now, I’ve got to be out in 6 days so I can’t wait 12 days let alone 12 years.  How do they expect me to find a flat in 6 days for goodness sakes?   But it’s happening.  Whether I should stay or go?  It’s not so much that I don’t want to find a flat as I don’t want to buckle under my landlord’s dictatorship.  But, now I think about it… that’s so selfish… I’m limiting my little ones’ chances by becoming homeless now.  No, I’ll budge, and go and find a flat.  But I won’t be pushed around again.  Next time, I’ll not budge an inch.

A Year in Haikus

January:

In January,

The frost on the frozen ground,

Is white and crystal

 

February:

In February,

The icy dangerous roads,

Are melting away.

 

March:

Spring is here in March,

The daffodils have begun,

To shoot through the earth

 

April:

April sends showers,

which wet the growing plants,

and make them spring up.

 

May:

May suggests flowers,

With roses, freesia, orchids,

These colour the land.

 

June:

June brings heat and sun,

The bright azure of the sky,

Gives joy to the beach.

 

July:

It gets hotter still,

Americans Celebrate,

Their independence.

 

August:

The beaches are packed,

And the sea is sparkling in,

The hot August sun.

 

September:

Green leaves turn to brown,

The summer has ended and,

the schools are open.

 

October:

October brings sweets,

Pumpkins and witches and trolls,

Halloween is back!

 

November:

Bang! Sizzle! Crash!

Fireworks light up the dark skies,

long nights and short days.

 

December:

Trees, and holly and,

diamantine snow encrusts ,

the sparkling pavements.

 

Bombing in World War II: From a German’s point of view

Crash!

The heaviness of sleep is shaken off,

as the bombs explode.

Like pigs for a trough,

we scramble.

 

Arrggh!

A man groans as he gets out of bed,

his head still dreamy from the still vale of sleep,

and legs like lead,

we rush.

 

Whine!

The air raid siren rings out clear,

in the still starry night,

a child wipes away a tear,

we hurry

 

Boom!

We hear a bomb nearby,

now we’re in the bunker

how can such fire come from such clear sky?

we huddle

 

Silence.

As the bombers dissolve away into the night,

I come out of the hochbunker,

Citizens of Lübeck know something isn’t right,

we wail.

 

Homes destroyed,

our prospects dead,

no hope for us,

even more unrest.

‘WHY SHOULD WE SUFFER?’

we all cry

‘when we disagree,

‘with the Nazi regime.’

Pour se rappeller d’eux – to remember them

A duel language poem to remember WWI

French:

Pour se rappeler d’eux,

Nous cultivons des coquelicots,

Parce qu’ils sont morts,

Si nous pouvions vivre.

 

Pour se rappeler d’eux,

Nous visitons les champs de bataille,

Et nous avons vu les tranchées,

Où ils vivaient dans la peur.

 

Pour se rappeler d’eux,

Nous nous ecrivons leurs noms sur nos monuments,

Alors nous pouvons voir et savoir,

Ils sont morts pour nous.

 

Pour se rappeler d’eux,

Nous visitons les cimetières,

Où ils sont enterrés,

Tous les soldats morts,

Si nous pouvions vivre.

 

English:

To remember them,

We grow poppies,

because they died,

so we could live.

 

To remember them,

we visit the battlefields,

and we see the trenches,

where they lived in fear.

 

To remember them,

We write their names on our monuments,

so we can see and know,

they died for us.

 

To remember them,

We visit the cemeteries,

Where they are buried,

all the dead soldiers,

so we could live.