Daddy, what did you do in the war?

They made a thunderstorm

above the village green, the day

we won the war. The church

stayed unstruck, but constant rain

inundated the roadsides. Our cars

stuck in the verges; we barely

made it to the station, but we left

our mark alright.

Midday was a blackout; we queued

like soldiers with our hands placed

on the shoulder of the man in front.

We kept each other’s spirits up

with tales of what we’d do if

the enemy moved in next door.

The rain came in waves

but we waded through the filthy mud

to make an ‘X’ with a blunt pencil

and took it back for ourselves.

We sat outside the English pubs

that night, our warm beers buzzed

by tiny flies. We picked out the foreign

bodies, squeezed them with our fingertips,

looked pleased with ourselves. Come

the morning, we said, we’d see what

we had done, what we’d created.

The night was so hot, we kicked

the sheets off, and slept like swastikas.

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This post was written by Simon Cockle