Battlefields: a new poem

My new poem ‘Battlefields’ has been accepted on to the website of the fundraising ‘Poetry for Ukraine’ anthology, published in April, in which I was featured among more than 250 poets from around the world.

Battlefields

‘Through the smoke the walking wounded come.’

There’s chaos after the explosion
but the TV newsman takes his cue
seeing the dazed and bleeding hobbling out
utters his perfect pentameter.

It is the measure of the moment
a mighty line in the blank verse of war
where there is no rhyme
and precious little reason.

‘Through the smoke the walking wounded come.’

As if ready to turn orator
and outspeaking the trenchant camera
his sudden Shakespearean flourish
echoes all the way back to Chaucer.

As timestruck witnesses to carnage
on all the battlefields of history
poets linger still
between the dead and the damned.

‘Through the smoke the walking wounded come.’