Dannie Abse
Terrible Angels
One bedtime, my father showed me his war medals,
their pretty coloured ribbons, and told me
the other story about the angels of Mons,
that élite and puissant expedition from God:
how first their invisible presence caused horses
to bolt and flocks of meat-snatching birds to rise,
circle around and around like a carousel.
But war coarsens (he said) even genteel angels.
When they spoke it was the silence of gas, amen;
when they sang it was shrapnel striking helmets;
then, finally, soldiers’ prayers and soldiers’ screams
thrilled the cold angels to steal the muskets
of the dead, to become stealthily visible,
bold and bloodthirsty, true facsimiles of men.
(My father, invalided home, was told
he knew more about angels than was healthy.)
Page(s) 22
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