End All

one hundred
years of war
to end all wars

gravestones
names inscribed
the written record
the dying and the dead
on every side
ledgers of death

we should remember
but the fog of war persists
neatly carved on tombstones
selectively sculpting our grief

we should have learned
but still find time to justify
the necessity of dutiful death

this the epitaph
a sacrificial roll-call
lives enlisted dispelled
no-one should expect
truth or reason

now war
on the global stage
is a commodity we sell
we kill precisely surgically
dissecting enemies
like a blade

we trade destruction
in far-away places where
the names of the dead
will never be written

bodies in this rubble
amount to collateral damage
non-combatants and amateurs
bystanders in a shoot-‘em-up
not worthy of honour
or remembrance

and if they only raised a gun
to defend a home
a loved one
a child

who keeps scores
days like these?

© BH, 2018

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I thought about remembrance. Again. Looking back, it’s become more contentious. I’ve written about war before but 11 of the 14 poems I have have been in the last four years. Most of them specifically about the First and Second World Wars.

I believe the whole process has become politicised. There seems to be more stir about the wearing of poppies, as if it was almost compulsory. Its ubiquity in the media around  11:11 is noteworthy. As if producers make sure that presenters, interviewers and interviewees all wear one.

Then there’s the vitriol directed towards those who don’t want to parade their act of memorial so blatantly, or those who choose another statement (for example, by wearing a white poppy).

Often the criticism is that people like that don’t care or didn’t serve and have no empathy for the fallen. Seems harsh to me. If I didn’t serve, I know those who did - from fathers who saw action or were POWs in WW2 to ex-military who served in Northern Ireland, the Falklands or Afghanistan.

I have nothing but admiration for people who saw their duty and did it. I have nothing but contempt for those who remember the sacrifice but let veterans sink or swim in a post-traumatic no-man’s land. I have incalculable sorrow for the millions of non-combatants who have been lost along the way. Especially those who simply fell by the wayside unrecorded, unlisted, as if they had never been.

Hence this poem - and why I wear a white poppy.