My dad left school at fourteen, without qualifications. He worked as a labourer in a steelworks and at the start of the last World War was denied the chance to fight for his country as the work he did was vital to the war effort.
He never read a book in his life, had no real education, yet in his mid-eighties he began to write poetry. I taught him to use a computer, made slight changes to his poems to ensure they scanned correctly, but the words are his alone.
This is the first poem he ever wrote. He was 85 at the time.
Were You There?
Did you volunteer for service in the war to end all wars?
Did you witness the destruction, that was never seen before?
Were you on the fields of Flanders, were you in the trenches there?
Did you hear the shot and shell, that seemed to come from everywhere?
Did you bandage up the wounded, did you bury all the dead
With your eyelids barely open, and your feet that felt like lead?
Were you there at the surrender, the Armistice, were you there?
Did you see the flags and bunting, were you there, were you there?
Did you see men returning, some were shell-shocked, some were lame.
And some with poison gas were scarred, to never work again?
But some, who were not there, they are somewhere out at sea,
The victims of the submarines, they died for liberty.
And some lie out in foreign soil, and some were never found,
The dreadful cost of warfare, buried deep in alien ground.
Men in high position talk of peace, but that is where it ends.
They feel that all the world’s their foe, and dare not trust their friends.
If war is not to be a way of life, for generations yet to come,
Now is the time to make a stand, to bring the message home,
To say to politicians, we’ve had our fill of war.
In war there is no victory, victims aplenty to be sure,
Some of us alive today have trod this path before,
and the memories it left with us are like an open sore.
If human conflict is to cease, and human life be spared,
The countries of this tragic world, will need to be prepared,
To work for unity and brotherhood, all with one accord,
And then, perhaps one day, peace and love will be restored.
This made me cry.
It’s beautiful.
x
Wow. Very beautiful. My mother works with the Vets in Los Angeles. I wonder if she’d like to share this poem with them. I’ll ask!
This is not like a first poem at all. The ‘truth’ in it overcomes any technical glitches. With a very little re-working it could stand with some of the greats. The writer gene is there all right. It gave me goose-bumps.
What a wonderful poem. Wonder if this is where Jake gets his talent from.