War Poems
The poems below can be read in parallel with the memoir, Family Life, Trauma and Loss in the Twentieth Century. The Legacy of War, that I co-authored with Carol Komaromy. They describe my responses to the deaths in war of my paternal grandfather and his elder son. Often I use the documents, letters and other paraphernalia I inherited when his younger son, my father, died - and the first two poems describe my attempts to find out more about my family.
All My Dead and Never Once Encountered
Up to a high shelf above my office door,
to a legacy of albums and attaché cases
I take my ignorance of where they lived and died,
of whether they were radiant in their later years
and what sound their voices had. I ask what they did
of a Sunday and what their neighbours thought of it,
how they felt when their sons and husbands were
conscripted. After the War Office Telegram,
what happened to their grief, what became of their love?
Climbing down I scrub dust from my finger tips,
dream vengeance for their bloody loss.
Snapshot
Younger than I am now by thirty years,
among your pals, your cap pushed back.
Not as I thought, away on the Western Front,
just camped in a Devon field, toying with guns.
Three tents pitched behind six uniformed lads,
another four in watch chains and waistcoats,
some old chap with a pickaxe, one small boy —
all stuck on my album’s opening page
under another photo of you, the one
where you’ve set your buttons to rights, laid
a five-pocket bandolier cross-wise on your chest.
Over your cheekbones, flawless skin.
Is it that history’s tipped me off, shown me
your Villers-Bretonneux grave? Or had sadness
already weighed on your glorious moustache,
caused it to weep on stopped-up lips?
Could dread so infect your eyes?
I would ease the serge from your back,
lay leather and Enfield aside — ask in a voice
I once had if you’ll play a game for a while.
The Draper’s Wife
We were married eight years
when he gave me this ring — a primrose
with petals of pearl, diamond stamens
sparkling it up —
then he checked our accounts,
put baccy, notepad and knife
in his pack, stood it erect
by the door, a soldier on watch
with only his number
inked into hemp.
I know we made love
as best we could, slept
on and off.
Leftovers grandma put out
made a breakfast of sorts for us
on guard for the cabman’s early knock.
Then up into the trap,
him, me and the pack.
Down at the Aldershot train,
more men than before,
kitted in khaki. Older ones now,
like him. The young fellows
all gone ahead.
He kissed me once
and then twice for the boys
while the cabman sat waiting,
his loaf and his two hard-boiled eggs.