Esther Chilton

It’s Friday and time for my Guest Writer Spot. If anyone would like their writing to appear on my blog, please get in touch.  I’m looking for stories and articles (up to 2000 words) and poems (up to 40 lines). You can  contact me here or by e-mail: esthernewton@virginmedia.com

Here is another thought-provoking poem from Gordon Simmonds:

Paschaendaele

Today the children play and the green fields echo with their laughter.

Not like then.

Then, there were no children.

Cold cloying mud subsumed the green fields,

And only satan and the shell shocked laughed.

–

Now, people live and love and work and sleep and dream of better things.

Not like then.

Back then the people fled in fear before the guns.

Before the guns created blood stained pools of corpse infested water.

Before the hell immortalized in prose and verse

Broke into the dreams of simple men.

–

In spring the trees will blossom and spread their fragrance

And shed their leaves beneath autumn mists.

Not like then.

Back then the devil slapped his thigh and laughed.

Trees? Trees? What use have I of trees? Destroy them all.

Leave just a blackened stump to remind these fools

That power is mine to blast and strip and break and shred.

–

Homes now are warm and dry, gardens bloom, bees buzz and birds fly.

Not like then.

Back then there were no homes, just empty waste.

A red brick blot upon a landscape blasted beyond destruction.

No hives for bees or nests for birds,

But rats and flies could feast and satiate themselves on putrid death.

–

True; people sicken still and die.

But not like then.

You think my words are dark and vile?

That poetry should not debase itself with such visions of gory horror?

But I tell you this, my friend. Learn and remember. Learn and remember.

Remind yourself that back then, crippling destruction,

And horrible death, was known and understood if you were there,

Or else was just a foreign field, a foreign war.

Just like now.

***