Esther Chilton

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This week sees another stunning poem from Gordon Simmonds:

Joe’s War

 It wasn’t a proper war.

No tales of derring-do from men of Connaught, Munster or of Enniskillen.

No red coated warriors standing tall, as shot and shell shred their serried ranks.

No muddied, bloodied heroes marching through the wire and fire of Maxims mad melody,

No wide eyed GI’s baptized in blood and ragged ruin on the beaches of Omaha.

No. This wasn’t a proper war.

–

This was a war of deserted streets, dark windows and darker alleys.

Of rooftops, threatening in pale moonlight.

Of green clad soldiers looking forward, behind, to left and to right,

To crouch at every corner. To watch and wait.

To keep the peace.

–

To keep the bad men of the south from the bad men of the north.

Of hidden foes who killed and exalted in death, and delighted in destruction.

The bomb, the bullet, the means justified the end;

The innocent, the guilty, who cared?

It wasn’t a proper war.

–

And then there was Joe.

Sergeant Major Joe.

Tall, tough, loud. Boots polished like mirrors,

Trousers creased like knives.

By rank, the scourge of every soldier under his command;

One look, a shout, a command from afar would cause a fear that only soldiers know.

A man’s man among men, but in his quiet time, a thinker, a poet.

And in his cups recalls “Go left my friend, and I will take the right. Go left.”

And as the tears roll down his ruddy cheeks, repeats “Go left my friend, go left.”

And neither saw the shot, or the shooter

As his friend’s soul spread slowly along the gutter

Of a town called Derry.

It wasn’t a proper war.

But it was Joe’s war.

***