Poems: part one
Below is a selection of poems, inspired by the First World War, written by Meg Pybus
COLUMNS
The orderliness of it all
Helmets
All the same
One in front
of the other
Leading ranks
banked
filing together
Advancing
In three ranks
Commanded
Running
Before falling
Sprawling
Today
A universe
Still, white
graves,
composed
rows
fading
into
distant
green
fields.
GO DOWN FIGHTING
He fought for his country
He fought for the truth
He fought back his fears
He fought with his youth
He fought back his tears
With thoughts of his wife
On the battlefield bleeding
He fought for his life
THE AWAKENING
Primroses greet us
In shy March sunshine
Arched backs
Tilted headstones
bend into their beds
suffocating
in weeds.
Kneeling at a bed
Without a stone
Nails scratch,
the hard-baked soil
scraping along
the rimming frame.
Peeling back
mossy blankets
Wafer crusts of stone
spall through fingers
into the earth.
One by one
letters
peer into the light.
Childlike
we spell out the name
A gunner
1919
A rural postman
Now
Remembered.
Meg Pybus March 2014, finding the grave of Joseph Alexander Morris in Stokesay Churchyard.
Joseph Alexander Morris died 5th February 1919, aged 37, of the Spanish flu
