Porridge and Black Treacle
France, Belgium, who owns it now,
which of these sticky little holes is forever England?
I push along a long straight road to somewhere else
through nothing much and think of you.
You, with your duck board eccentricities,
your radio in the cardboard box,
your raw onions sliced in half to purify the air,
and your trench breakfasts of porridge and black treacle.
You were here, going over t’top, getting stuck in, stuck in shell holes,
deafened, deaf and blinded, blasted, gassed and coal-boxed, silenced.
I suppose the snow flakes must’ve blustered then
as they bluster now, wild and thick, too wet to stick.
Mud snow mud snow mud snow. The wipers spoon doggedly,
but as fast as each gulp is gobbled down, there’s more to take its place.
I slow to a crawl, headlights dipped. Once, over breakfast,
I’d asked you what it was like then, then.
You looked up, thought, and said, just the same,
porridge and black treacle.
Page(s) 31
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