(killed in action 1942, aged 20)
Memories
Lost on the battlefield
Of somebody else’s war.
Unwritten futures
Frozen in time
By political whim.
Twenty years behind him
Eternity in front of him,
All that remains
Are tears
And old photographs
Of a brother
A son
A husband
A father
A sacrifice
On the altar of politics,
And a politician’s war
©Alan McKean
Cenotaph proudly remembers
The Fallen
City, town, village
All have their memories
Of neighbours who never came back.
We did come back,
quietly.
We never spoke of what we’d seen
Or how we lost an arm, or a leg,
Or how a mate died next to us,
We kept quiet.
Hiding the hurt
Hiding the pain
Hiding the guilt of survival.
Shell shock, changed person, PTSD
Call it what you will
We managed,
We struggled as anniversaries came around,
Memories tore our hearts
Just as sure as any bullet,
But we soldiered on,
lived to watch our children’s dreams flower,
and we became a smile
on our grandchildren’s faces
My name is on no wall,
But I was still there
