Dad & Mum & Monte Cassino
My Dad had wars taken from books
with diagrams and explanations. Arrows
aimed towards Sidney Barrani. Entire
chapters calling themselves El Alamein,
General Rommel, or the Desert Rats. Black
crosses marking Salerno and Monte Cassino
on a map.
The Italians actually rebuilt the abbey,
the Benedictine Abbey, at Monte. But
it was never the same afterwards.
My Mum fought wars with death itself –
her first mother, father, Auntie Ethel,
Ada, and lastly, my Gran. Aeroplanes
swooping down onto the summit
of the mountain like kept hawks
owned and tempered by Christian
Princes for sport –
while she laid her table,
arranged her cutlery, always
kept a portion back, back
for tomorrow, for the dead
perhaps returning, choosing to return
coming home with violent desires. Dad
listening to the radio fro any news of it.
Page(s) 51
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The