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General   (General discussion, talk about anything.)

Started by: jarvo (30250) 

EL ALAMEIN


It was nearly dark
when we heard the news:
it filtered through on the light programme,
just as the afternoon was coming to an end.

On Poole Street,
they were pulling the shutters down-
the ones that cast
shadows on to the pavements,

and the cobbled road
that led down to the fourteen meadows.
The meadows was a softer place then,
and you could see as far as Rose Hill.

We would go there in the early morning,
and watch the river flowing
towards the Honeysuckle;
but it was darker there below the street.

It was getting on for Christmas
when the breakthrough was announced.
I imagined Churchill, almost gloating,
his gambles at last paying off.

His debt? An army of young men from down under,
dead now, but their ghosts making their way
up the Suez canal,
and across the sands to the desert.

Some of them,
these wandering lost ghosts, had found solace,
and made their way to the fourteen meadows.
They would appear,

as spectres breathing in the
Poolstock air, somewhere...
We were kids then, just glad of the good news-
waving our Union Jacks in the air.


Jarvo 2020

Replied: 25th Dec 2020 at 18:19

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