Midnight strikes on the memorial clock
A flame throwing dragon is guarding the flock
While a gunpowder fog glistens and glosses
The uniform slates and the uniform mosses.
For God and for Country. Lest we forget.
A window on North Street turned aquarium green
Where a Six Nations turf war bled out on the screen
And all the beers downed are now suds on the glass
As a solider called Taffy’s kicked out on his arse.
The Castle Hotel on a Saturday night.
Over the top lads. One hell of a fight.
Jones is shot through, guts spilled at ten paces
One hundred years from the pals without faces.
Retching and heaving by the stone-carved platoon
Blood at the feet of the boys gone too soon.
For God and for Country. Lest we forget.
Nisha, meanwhile, she will not remember
This hen night scene from sometime in… November?
And is missing in action out in no man’s land
Too many Jägerbombs, four in each hand.
At the sound of a whistle, she went over the top
And is now taking cover in Lloyd Morgan’s shop
Pinned down on East Street by the rat a tat tat
Of a security shutter and the hiss of a cat.
And sniping from windows and ricochet words
The bayonet beaks of the flesh-eating birds
A battle dress ribbon, a medal for valour
An ecstasy of fumbling*, no masks boys it’s Calor.
For God and for Country. Lest we forget.
By dawn the guns are silent
And a smoke of red kites rises above the carrion
As an Ivor Williams trailer bleats past
Welsh lambs for the slaughter.
These lines were written laying in bed next to an Evans in my hotel room after watching the poet, Atilla the Stockbroker, perform in Rhayader’s wonderful Lost Arc arts venue.
*The expression “an ecastasy of fumbling” is lifted directly from the war poet Wilfred Owen’s Dulce et Decorum Est. I thank him, Atilla and my constant muse, Dylan Thomas, for the inspiration and my poetry teacher, Pele Cox, for her gentle and expert encouragement.
The memorial clock tower Rhayader from my bedroom above Ty Morgan’s cafe. It was erected by subscription in 1924 for the men of the area who lost their lives in the Great War. The names of those who died in WW2 were added later. The Castle Hotel’s “aquarium” disco is round the corner in North Street. The Calor gas sign close to where Nisha took shelter is just to the right in East Street.
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