written and posted by members of Lancashire Dead Good Poets' Society

Thursday 17 November 2011

Tax this inheritance - please

08:49:00 Posted by Damp incendiary device , 1 comment
A rough draft of a poem I started for the blog this week.





Grandad


Back from Burma, Big Man, Bear,
saunters through the door.
Teeth on parade, hair gleaming with Brylcreem,
dumps his kit bag at the threshold,
sweeps her up again, this time for keeps.

In the hall, Samurai sword;
token from a corpse,
the man who shot his best pal.
He'll give it to his mother
But she'll sell it in his absence
Like that's enough to make it disappear

War

Like a fetid souvenir,
green, rotten egg,
kept in the dark

War

Carried in his pocket, even at night,
shown to strangers, to the nurses,
shared with fellow collectors.
Treasured like a putrid faberge egg
encrusted with misdeeds
enclosing murder and a justification.

War

Passed round at parties
Fondled over supper
Preened in the car

War

Dressed up for kiddies
With lewd fragments omitted
Because sex is worse than butchery

War

With the stench of old water seeping through the dark
With a sob that mumbles in the silence
Like a fetid egg from a dark place
That begs for forgiveness
And can never be discarded.

1 comments:

Ashley Lister said...

A strong one Vicky.

WAR IS A PUTRID FABERGE EGG. I wonder what Lakoff and Johnson would make of that metaphor?

Ash