With gargoyled faces they stare dead eyed
into the past of their happy lives.
Not yet removed from the field
their souls still warm as breath.

These stupefied few ripped and flung like dolls,
look at their carcasses, what do you see?
lies and hope and pride, innocence?
regret or loss, no there is nothing.

And over there the same,
staring back visionless masks of puppets.
Above acres of mudded blood angels weep,
while demons give thanks to eternal men.

These ragged children, bastard sons fathers,
with never the chance to nurture or love.
Now they know the truth,
their voices disembodied for evermore.

© Wolfgar 2018

Do you think they felt the weight of history
pissing down in the drizzling sea spray
or when pulling on their mudded boots
that trod and fought through blood and clay

The fingers that caressed old photographs
were the same that clawed and scraped the skies
their last wept tears streaked ashen cheeks
as they left their deadened eyes

Were their grotesque withered bodies treated
solemnly and kind
or tossed as cannon fodder
in the trenches dug behind

Do you think their brothers cried for them
or resigned themselves to meet
and secretly reached out to them
to embrace their own defeat

And how can we in all truth now
profess to know their pain
and promise we’ll remember them
when the drums beat hasn’t changed

© Wolfgar 2018

Take these eyes that I may not see
the harm that went before,

and take this tongue which silently
withholds the words of war,

yet screams within a fractured mind
where only I can hear,

the terrors that were left behind
so far away but ever near.

Take my hands and wash them clean
of flesh tainted by blood,

that in the night they might un-claw
and grip some peace instead of war,

and please take my heart and fill it full
with all the things I lost,

that somehow might replace in me
all I spent to pay this cost.

© Wolfgar 2018 

An updated interpretation of Drummer Hodge by Thomas Hardy

They throw in Drummer Lee-Rigby,
to bleed.
un-defended, just as culled.

His landmark a rain washed gutter,
which flushes the detritus of human life into a divisive Thames.
The cities true testament to multiculturalism.

Young Lee-Rigby never knew fresh from his red rose home,
that the pride of his life would out live that day to be left to his boyhood alone.

And why up-rose to nightly unrest,
white boys with hate unleashed in their breast.

Yet portion of that well-trod street
will Lee-Rigby forever be,

from blooded tarmac to fiery melee.
From hate filled night,
to grief filled day.

The death of a forgotten land,
and a scarlet line drawn in their sand.

© Wolfgar 2018

From brisance condensed in hatred
ignition came,
like the dormant dust of ages,
from careless words and truth-less history,
it came.
 
Some unknown, immolated, evaporated, disappeared.
Others reconstituted, pulling limbs and minds together.
Whilst the lost fragmented to darker corners,
into the splintered flash of a moment, screaming for eternity.
Thunder roars silent in their dead ears. 

The grey carpet laid randomly where it fell,
its fabric now woven into mine.
I wait for the second wave
to wash me clear,
away from the expanding storm,
to an untouched atoll.

© Wolfgar 2018

A disused children’s playground
the Carousel and Ferris Wheel,
where the seesaw’ed
when the peace thawed

Over there a shell hole
fifty meters from the breakfast buffet
The Al Deira Hotel fly’s freedom flags
but no castles in this sand today

The crippled body bent and cast
like a post-card from the edge
the broken promise clear at last
just another worthless pledge

© Wolfgar 2/2018

He found a stone in-between the fences
matted with blood and hair,
across the wire blackened canisters and rubber
which came from here but landed there.

There’s a fat old sloth slumped by the checkpoint
his weapon slung like a child’s toy,
he drags laboriously on filterless tips
and has no concern for a wounded boy.

From the tower, cameras scan the terrain
everything on CCTV,
while the man with the stone in no-mans land
ponders, which side of the fence should he be?

Ramallah 4 Feb 18

© Wolfgar 2/2018

What beauty comes of war
from all that’s black as blood
from damaged mind and broken bone

What beauty comes of war

What beauty comes of ugliness
from torment trapped in blinding light
from silver landscapes blasted white

What beauty comes of war

Yet how remembrance uses it
the flags and slow lament
with dignity and gratitude and scarlet sentiment

Is beauty in the orphan child
a mind insane
a lonesome soul

Is beauty in a life bereft
to live without a love
to sleep alone and cold

If yes a terrible beauty comes of war

But grim remembrance bares the truth
of beauty never seen
whilst only those with scars are proof
to those who’ve never been