He was not whistling cattle up the lane
With his border collie, Flash,
Slinking along like a wraith
He was not jingling his change
In his moleskin jacket, at the bar of the village pub
Those times he kept like gems in a locked chest
Every fresh attack turned one to paste.
His finger pulled the trigger mechanically,
Like a bird scarer,
A pigeon firing at hawks
When the mortar blew the next man's head away
He pissed himself
An ordinary man who knew himself destructible
He missed clean water, linen, new baked bread
The homely comforts
Around him, thousands perished, swift or slow
Stupidly, fearfully, doing the barbed wire jig
Years later a Belgian farmer ploughed him up
Too late for him to feel the warming sun
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem