Lest We Gorget: Vj Day 75 Commemoration Poem by Sheena Blackhall

Gordon Highlanders, sent to Changi prison,
Were told they were going to Thailand for a holiday

There they were set to work on the Death Railway
Slaving, starved in the jungle, over the River Kwai

Their meals were rice, three times a day,
Their meat was dog and snail
Rats were bred in camps for men to eat.

261 miles, throughHellfire Pass
The smallest wound on the skin would ulcerate

Death came by torture, malnutrition, malaria,
Dysentery, pneumonia, cholera
Survivors tottered to peace as ghostly skeletons

………………………………………………

90% of the people died in Hiroshima,
Radioactive rain poured down
From the mushroom cloud

In the years that followed,
Survivors would face leukemia, cancer,
Terrible side effects fromradiation.

It takes ten secondsfor a nuclear bomb to blossom
Its cruel seeds last decades, spangenerations
Deadly umbrella, skinning people alive