Grimsby Poets Forums

The voice said ' We are at War'
And I was afraid, for I did not know what this meant.
My sister and I ran to our friends next door
As if they could help. History was lessons learnt
with ancient dates, but here

Was something utterly new,
The radio, called the wireless then, had said
That the country would have to be brave. There was much to do
And I remember that night as I lay in bed
I thought of soldiers who

Had stood on our nursery floor
Holding guns, on guard and stiff. But war meant blood
Shed over battle-fields, Cavalry galloping. War
on the September Sunday made us feel frightened
Of what our world waited for.

By Elizabeth Jennings

Very good Colin, and you may well like this poem about war in general ;

POEM by Muriel Rukeyser

I lived in the first century of world wars.
Most mornings I would be more or less insane.
The news would pour out of various devices
The newspapers would arrive with their careless stories,
Interrupted by attempts to sell products to the unseen.
I would call my friends on other devices;
They would be more or less mad for similar reasons.
Slowly I would get to pen and paper,
Make my poems for others unseen and unborn.
In the day I would be reminded of those men and women,
Brave, setting up signals across vast distances,
considering a nameless way of living, of almost unimagined values.
As the lights darkened, as the lights of night brightened,
We would try to imagine them, try to find each other,
To construct peace, to make love, to reconcile
Waking with sleeping, ourselves with each other,
Ourselves with ourselves. We would try by any means
To reach the limits of ourselves, to reach beyond ourselves,
To let go the means, to wake.
I lived in the first century of these wars.

That is very good Adam. But as the chances of world wars have lessened, it seems that for many of us daily life has become a mini-war ?! Maybe the two are connected ?!

Yes you are right Colin, and the preparation for that is that todays schools have become training war zones for kids !!

A poem on that would be timely maybe ?

War is very frightening when politicians announce we are involved whether we like it or not. And it does seem that we are conditioned to war from childhood, with the various war-games available.

Robert Davidson.

http://www.robertdavidson.blogsource.com