Not a Commemoration.
An unwelcome prodding of barely suppressed memory.
Horrors come again to haunt the night hours.
Faces of friends and enemies in spectral conflict.
And always, that echoing mental indignity,
The heart thumping panic,
The wet bedclothes
And the sickening weariness of waking.
Oh, the insanity of war
And the brutal obscenity
Of perverted science
Versus human flesh.
No Commemoration then,
But a bottle, in a lonely room,
And a long, long telephone call
To a true and trusted comrade
And perhaps,
Another new day,
Next day.