When Armistice day came to end

King’s letter - blood ink from sea,

‘rejoice my friend’ is what Tommy had once said to me.

Mesopotamia – the black bog of Ottoman remember those on the banks of velvet Tigris, Kaiser led a slew in Jihad the desert rape of Solomon

Oil mouths of burning hydrous nightmares from iron beds in rehab.

 

On the Centenary of the Great War do we not hear

youth?

could we not see what we were fighting for?

Returning to the same gates where Tommy had already warned us

Yet, the battle suits before and now still continue; posting death onto Persian shores

where our boys fell - shrapnel cuts - gas with sliced skin of mildew

circulating into poisoned pours.

 

Tommy saw posters protect our King now we see rolling

news posts

to fight and defend our Queen - Nothing great about war and

its ghost.

When we see what Tommy had already observed boots walk in ancestral blood - joining them in brave battle-song,

protect the Anglo-Persian oil reserve

desert of red and rose - clipped mud- How do we justify war

and its abhorrent wrongs!

 

 

11 On the Centenary of the Great War was

Written for Thomas Duggan my grandfather -Who fought and survived the Battle at Kut-al-Amara, in Mesopotamia (Iraq)

during the Great War, and received a medal for bravery and a letter from the King.