War poems

Hi, My flow of poems continues. I blame my visit to India which released something (the poet?) in me. I have written about my Dad's Second World War stories two or three times before. Once as a comment piece in The Friend and more recently as an article in The Friends Quarterly. And as part of a special issue of the British Journal of Guidance and Counselling which I edited devoted to Counselling and Armed Conflict. (I can send copies of these pieces to anyone who wants them.)

IT'S YOU OR ME MATE

The German plane dived low
Over your ship
And the deadly sound of its guns began
"It's you or me mate"
And you followed your training
And fired back
A lifetime of Christianity
of pacifism
Vanished from your soul

The grieving began later.

DEATH AND ATTEMPTED RESURRECTION

Another time you shot down the deadly plane
And fished the German pilot from the sea
He was unconscious half dead
You ordered your men to save him
They tried for half an hour
They failed

"We're sailors we rescue people from the sea
It might be our turn next"
You told me in a strange explanation
Of death and attempted resurrection.

I'LL PRAY FOR YOU

You were in a bar
In Greece
With your ship mates
The poverty of war
Has made the local girls
Loose and desperate
You find them attractive
But you have a wife at home
But that does not seem to trouble
the vicar
But he is only messing around
And not serious
You give the girl the loose change from your pocket
She is ready for you
But you decline
She looks at you with her Greek serious eyes
"Where are you going?"
"Tomorrow Salonika"
She knows mines, bombs, machine guns
"I'll pray for you"

[ The man with no faith left
Meets a young woman
With faith to spare
And faith is restored by an act of charity.]

ENLISTING MY MOTHER

My mother is with you
On board ship
Against the rules
And then the air raid begins
You man the guns
And my mother is enlisted
As gunner's mate

It's told as a big joke later
But what if
What if
What if my mother had died?

How would you have lived?

FEEDING THE HUNgRY

The War is over
But the fighting and the dying continues
And the refugees flee in boats
You patrol the sea lanes of Greece
And come across
A boatload of refugees
mostly women and children
Starving
Desperate
Your sailors raid the ship's stores
And hand over
Bread and food for the hungry.

AN ENDING


I've told and re-told
Your stories
I weep over them
Time
and
time
Again
I am no nearer an understanding
No nearer to any kind of peace
But
You did that which you had to do.