Sunday 10 November 2013

Unheard


“All a poet can do today is warn” (Wilfred Owen)

(i)
A shame we never listened to that poet
who drank the poisoned well of human feeling;
who fell into the field of wounds and bled.

(ii)
The soldier: now, the victim, not the hero;
who's led to die in men-filled abattoirs
the size of towns; worth less than condemned meat.

(iii)
Sing out! Sing out! Sing out! You Hymns of Hate!
You half-rhymed words of warning! Tell the men
who fight: you are the enemy you kill.

(iv)
The final insult to The Dead. We fight;
we maim; we kill: as if you never died.
As young men’s years are all undone. Again.

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