Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

In Granddad’s house was a book on World War
2 tucked in the bookshelf between garden

Books, tuppenny thrillers and Gran’s Mrs
Beetons. Inside were photographs of bombed

Cities, Spitfires and a Messerschmitt
And Hitler with a raised hand. You don’t want

To read books like that, said Gran, nothing but
Silly men doing silly things, and she’d

Carry on knitting, tut-tutting beneath
Her breath. Granddad said nothing; his pale blue

Eyes sucked up her small talk like a sponge, her
Words like needles beneath his skin, her small

Chitter chatter, he thought, didn’t matter.
You’d open the blue book anyway,

Tripping over the big hard words like stones,
Focusing on the photographs in black

And white, the swastikas on the plane’s wings,
Hitler’s odd moustache, and burnt-out cities

In ruins and bombs and death. Why don’t you
Read a comic book, Gran said, her grey eyes

Moving over you like a cat’s rough tongue.
Granddad sighed and looked into the fire,

The flickering flames, the hot coals, and his
Memory of World War 1, trenches, bombs,

Guts, blood, death and best friends gone. You closed the
Book, put it back on the shelf between the

Mrs Beetons and the tuppenny plots
And the garden book with flowered cover,

And listened to the long-winded hum of
Conversations between gran and your mum.

this is excellent from my perspective, as one who actively works with veteran's groups.....to me you describe not only a childhood memory, but a classic case of PTSD......we knew so little back then, but you would hear terms like" shell-shocked" after WWI, and later after II, "battle fatigue"

but no one knew the depth of these war scars, they are still learning today, but they do know that the wars in IRAQ & AFGHANISTAN have produced in inordinate number of new cases

we used to think of these combatants as being weak-minded and withdrawn.....and all people could do for them was patronize them

thanx for posting dadio

Thank you, saw for your insightful reading & comments.

dadio -- of the limited sample I have seen here of your well-crafted work, this is the best.

While one focus of the poem is the book on WWII, Granddad's memories are of his time in WWI, a war in which I have a special interest, and a character from whom is my namesake. Of all idiotic events to have transpired, that war underscores the quote from Acton -- "Never disregard stupidity as a factor in history."

--

A man's pain is just
an abstraction to others,
an image of pain.

Thank you, hollweg.

Dadio, this is one of the better poems you've written lately. Not only does the poem seem more authentic--it appears to have a personal photo. To me, family stories are really interesting when told in poetry. ( I am unable to post photos
at the moment but I can send links for photos/videos. So, I don't use illustrations.)

thank you, Steve. Photo of me as a boy.