following the events of this summer …the few words I have to offer…
War (7th July 2005)
Today suddenly we have a taste of it, are caught
by the fear, inflamed with fury at the killing. Real,
instantly gathers new meaning. Guns on our streets
to fight the crazy machinations of ignited explosive.
Metal and glass deformed, mirror the lives of the injured.
The dead flung over steel rails, or emptied on tarmac.
Yesterday in Trafalgar Square they were cheering victory
in the bid for twenty-twelve. Now it is the turn
of something evil to laugh, to mock, to jeer.
Peroni
He drinks his chilled beer al fresco
bathing in sunshine
watching people walking
by, following the girls with his eyes –
imagining. But sensing
something of the undercurrent
the slipping of time
the passing of a life, changes
gathering pace, the reality –
what it is to be human
our very human war – building
terror among us.
On discovering thirty shelves of books on military history at my local Waterstones
War.
There’s a lot of it about.