The War Within

The war was everywhere

In the heavy cotton blackout

Sheets, the air-raid siren

Wail, the buzz bomb

Hole in the bedroom

Roof, the litter of brick

And splinters in the tin

Tack alleyways, the nightly

Huddle in the coal dust

Chute, the one-rasher-a-week

Ration book, the watered down

Milk, weak tea, orchard

Apple windfalls, heels

Of bread and dripping from the pan

The almost edible pea soup

Fog, storms inside the battered

House and the real war

Began after the all-clear

Sounded: father cloud and mother

Blind we hid behind

In practiced fear

Taking in like mustard gas

Temper shards that filled the air,

Black and blue morning

Song, the belt within an inch

Of our cat dying lives

The Jesus-Mary-Joseph

Tribe, sons pulled headfirst through a blessed

Screed — all this we

Kept inside our skin and

Carried the wound to aging

Term where much is vacant

Much is lost.

The German sword we kept for sport

Still hangs above our head.