Remembrance & Writing Opposed To War.

[Louis P. Burns aka Lugh]

It's the 11th November, 2006. Remembrance Day and a chance to reflect on all the losses people experience because of war. If members of Sensitize wish to offer their own writing on the tragedies of war, or remember friends and loved ones who have died or been injured in conflicts, then please post to this thread.

I will get the ball rolling with an old poem of mine called Terminal:-

[Louis P. Burns aka Lugh]

terminal
By Louis P. Burns aka Lugh © 1987 / 2002. All Rights Reserved.

• standing in the airport
  feeling lost and alone
  watching people wait for hours
  to use a telephone
  a policeman tells the broken-hearted
  there's nothing he can do
  I have a cup of coffee
  the clock shows quarter-to
  
  you don't know what it did to me
  when you had to go away
  all I could do was hope
  that you'd be back again
  someday
  
  the rain is falling heavy
  I press my face into the glass
  and try to visualise your face
  at sometime in the past
  they said you died a hero's death
  out on the frontline
  that you climbed the ranks of bravery
  when you lay down on a mine
  
  well, all I feel is nausea
  and I wish that I could scream
  I wish that I could pinch myself
  and wake up from this dream
  but, this is not imagined
  this is very, very, real.
  I can't help thinking that you
  got the shit end of the deal
  
  you don't know what it did to me
  when you had to go away
  all I could do was hope
  that you'd be back again
  someday.
  
  standing on the tarmac
  my heart sinks like a stone
  as they take your body off the plane
  you have finally
  come home...

• 

Image in this post is copyright property of the Ulster Museum:-
http://www.ulstermuseum.org.uk/image_li ... 92hweb.jpg

[Mike Daniels]

Reasons To Be Cheerful

Bliss -
an edge of rain against fresh mown grass
and the world dilutes.

Faded banners fling threads against the air,
against the anthems we sang
to bugle calls, and the whisper of steam
that washed station platforms.

I pick a poppy - just one -
to blaze against the sun
in phantom anger.
I heard your regrets
as you feed the chambers
with the snicking of steel.

Will there be more graveyards
like these, I wonder,
to stiffen November breezes?

[Louis P. Burns aka Lugh]

Thanks Mike ...