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Lest We Ever Forget.

kevin raymond

Thursday, November 10th, 2011

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 Opening tired eyes, muscles aching
He awakes midst the squalor and stench
Startled by frenzied conversations
In his mother tongue English and French.

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 A referee’s whistle had pierced through his dream
He looks across no-mans land mud
He’d been dreaming of terraces and following his team
At a league match, or tie in The Cup?

3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 Idyllic Saturday mornings lying next to his love
Then messages and chores as you did.
Donning his gas mask he compares the mist
To Hackney Marshes he played as a kid.

4 Leave a comment on verse 4 0 Granddad shows grandson, how his dad used to tackle
A brown leather football, a pram and a scarf
Shooting off home where a coal fire crackles
As the evening turned chilly and dark.

5 Leave a comment on verse 5 0 Lighting a Woodbine he calls out her name
Stuck fast in the mire and the rain
He’s dreaming of Boxing Day, stood with her at the game
Highbury, Brisbane Road, or The Lane.

6 Leave a comment on verse 6 0 A short burst on a whistle, machine guns ignite
He looks out on the carnage in pain
Dawn’s breaking is shattered by the flashing of light
The dying scream for their mothers in vain.

7 Leave a comment on verse 7 0 Rats pick at corpses, alone and long dead
In bomb craters the wounded cry “help”
A long way from the football and life he once led
He’s sullen and warped by this hell.

8 Leave a comment on verse 8 0 The wounded are bought in on stretchers and boards
Their sreaming is etched in his mind
Back home in Blighty tucked safely indoors
Are the kinfolk these braves left be-hind.

9 Leave a comment on verse 9 0 So when stuffed watching telly, twiddling your toes
Too much food in your belly, Queen reading her notes
Remember real hero’s, so our generation won’t know
The Hades where laughter and youth fear to go!

© Kev 2011

Notes

The last line of my poem is copied or very similiar at least to a line from one of The Holy Trinity of War Poets (in my humble opinion anyway): Seigfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen or Isaac Rosenberg. I can’t remember which one, but I’m sure you get my drift.?

Peace.

Kev.

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/lest-we-ever-forget-2/