When we think of war we think of men and mud and blood. We think of horror, death and destruction, everything in its path lain waste. But wars don’t have to be huge to be devastating. Regardless of size all wars are fought by individuals, soldier and civilian, we are encouraged to think of them as a block, a population, an army, but each and every person involved is distinct. Ancient war, great war, modern war, all demand the ultimate sacrifice. Yet that sacrifice is not made by the dead. The dead don’t feel any pain, they don’t suffer or regret, they don’t have to cope with their loss. It is hard for the left behind to feel anything but abandoned, fury, confusion. It is they who ask the hard questions, they who desperately want their loved ones to have died for something worthwhile, but increasingly suspect that they died for nothing. Loss is just that, the removal of something that should be there, and sometimes the sense that it still is, is overwhelming. Loss is perpetual disappointment. It is not forgetting to remember, it is remembering to forget. For the left behind wars never end, an uncertain death is a life sentence, wars are not won by the dead, they are lost by the living.
Fear of heights
I had a friend called Buster.
He would phone me to say
when I could come up to play.
‘Dadsout!’
He would shout,
with all the glee he could muster.
We met trespassing at Rex farm
I was a spy, just pretend
behind enemy lines.
He pelted me with dry pig bread
small stones
and cones
from pines.
He called me a kid,
said he meant no harm
‘Bang! Bang! You’re dead.’
Even offered to be my friend
said he was doing me a favour,
then punched me in the belly.
I didn’t like him one bit
he was older, taller, braver
dared me to walk on frozen pig shit.
‘Like Jesus did.’
A bad time to discover a hole
in the gentle black sole
of my wellie.
‘Dadsout!’
Buster made a treehouse, crow’s nest.
I stood on the yearning deck
in tatty shorts and natty vest
admiring his ascending heels.
‘A p-pirate’s life for me.’
I tried to follow him up the mast
but my fear of heights held me fast.
A wishbone catapult around my neck
jabbed the handle with a jiggy knee
adorned my throat with dainty weals.
‘Did you escape the hangman?’
asked his beautiful mother
as she daubed me iodine red,
so living deadpan.
‘A kiss for the brave’
she said with lovely ring
sloe eyes grey and grave.
‘I wish I was B-Buster’s b-brother.’
I stuttered into the sting,
her bruised lips on my forehead.
‘Dadsout!’
Buster liked to travel
so we built a touring car
from an Atco motor mower,
147 cc’s of four stroke power.
We drove down to Zanzibar
blades spraying gravel
at over one mile per hour
or maybe even slower.
We saw a mysterious sideshow
a grand master of dark art
eyes lined with kohl
throw a rope up in the barn
straight as a fireman’s pole.
The magician’s heavy heart
his scarcely whispered stare
bound my mind with fear
spun from gripping yarn.
As his apprentice climbed
I watched from far below
only to disappear
all reason rhymed
into his thin air.
‘Dadsout!’
Buster had a wishing well.
Deepest in England or so he’d say.
On a clear day the sun shone straight down
and you could see the Pacific ocean,
watch the flicker and flash,
of the whales and fishes.
I never did, no way, wouldn’t play.
Got scared at the very notion
like being on top of a chimney stack
gaping brick mouth, brick teeth
nothing but throat, the guts beneath.
Buster would drag me into the garden,
sit on the edge but I’d hang back,
while he dropped stone wishes,
quietly counting,
for the splash.
‘If I fell, all would be well.’
He whispered with a worn frown.
‘What?’ I replied, dread mounting.
‘Don’t say what, say pardon.’
‘Dadsout!’
Buster had a blue moon eye
something to do with the mower
he took me to a magic place
a special tree he had found
one of its lower
branches had grown into the ground
grown another smaller tree.
‘That’s me and that’s you.’
I understood and climbed so high
I very nearly flew
as iodine bit my neck and his mother kissed me.
‘Why do you call David, Buster?’
‘He said his F-Father calls him that’ I replied.
She looked at me in a bit of a fluster,
pale hands flitting about red face.
‘Oh no,’ she sighed.
‘Dadsout!’
Buster dug an afraid,
I mean an air raid
shelter in the middle of his lawn.
It was really just a pit
possibly open grave
we settled on trench.
We were overrun.
I stifled a yawn
surrendered to the Hun
pretended to be French.
Our hearts weren’t really in it
the walls were damp
so we sat out the war
in a German prison camp
with a sticky mud floor
playing trumps and whist.
‘My real name is Dave,
I’m only called Buster by my Dad.’
Mused the rather sad
chief archaeologist
as he examined a piece of blue china
possibly Ming bowl
or Ming teacup.
‘Perfectly clear,’
I said. ‘I’ve got a wet arse.’
We grew bored of the dig
downgraded it to hole.
‘Better fill it back up.’
Said the tin miner.
We relayed the turf as best we were able
it sat on the manicured grass
an unruly green wig
on a snooker table
‘Oh dear.’
‘Dadsout?’
Buster didn’t call today
so with light and bell going
I peddle up uninvited.
His mother answers the door
sudden irritation showing,
like she’s never seen me before.
I flash my police I.D.
‘Detective Brent Cleaver’
she doesn’t seem at all delighted,
to meet me.
‘David’s unwell and can’t play.’
I don’t quite believe her,
she looks a right state,
I’m trained in these matters.
I’ve nothing better to do
so I sneak in to investigate.
Upstairs something shatters
I hear an angry muffled shout.
‘Stop it! How could you!’
I glance along the hall
the last door opens wide,
my best friend stumbles out.
He leans on the wall
looks my way
in his eyes tears glint
on his left cheek
a vivid hand print.
His mother follows,
I’ve nowhere to hide
through fingers I peek,
I can’t seem to flee
she sees me,
swallows,
passes Buster apace.
I back up to the top stair
feel the pull of vertigo
begin to sway
cover my head
expecting a blow
I step back into air
but she grabs me instead.
She bends and touches my face,
my heart running wild.
‘I have no choice,
it’s not what you think.’
Behind her a voice.
‘Sorry Mum.’
And as she rose,
I saw her bloody nose
and when she smiled
her teeth were pink.
I have a friend called Buster.
‘Dadsout.’
He said with a guilty pout
and none of his usual bluster.
He said his lies were dumb,
that he’d been caught
bang to flipping rights,
so he let me win the chalk wars
even though he won the arms race.
High from my white cliff fort
not the slightest trace
of my fear of heights.
For many an hour
we trimmed the clocks
my bold new senses
totting up multiple scores
on his dustbin lid defences
soft blanched rocks
bursting like bags of flour,
Buster’s last stand.
‘I SURRENDER, I GIVE IN!’
He yelled with a grin
waving a white hanky furiously,
iodine and blood stained
held tight in his mother’s hand
as my blameless stuttering
so very incuriously
set the truth free.
‘Oh no,’ she sighed.
her hands fluttering
before a pained
yet rather
lovely flush.
‘David never knew his father.
(deathly hush)
He died.
In Normandy.’
THE ACCIDENTAL HUMAN 