wordsout
< Poems by Charles Jobson >

Image result for spraying chemicals helicopter

The War poets' warning

Many died on those scourged red earth fields:
such waste of integrity and intrinsic worth. 
From the Menin gate to the ground at Ypres Flanders is yesterday’s pool of bad water. 

Here we have not known 
what it is like to suffer an army of occupation. Along our busy high streets reciprocity
casts a pale glow over anxious worries, 

and now we have a new worry. 
Earth has the power to regenerate 
but we have the power to destroy 
if the scales are tipped. 

The War Poets knew about inhumanity 
     and cruel treatment. 
Today all is building up a nest of chemical hornets ready to tear the planet apart 
and poppy fields will seem like paradise.


© Charles Jobson. For permission to re-use contact  godfrey@wordsout.co.uk. 

.