COLKITTO POEMS

Image by Julia Schwab

Wearied

Come all ye, come all ye, come all ye young men

Come see all your comrades from hill and from glen

We die in the mountains we die on the plains

We die in wars ever fought without gain

We die in the morning we die in the night

We die in our weakness we die in our might

We die in the sunlight we die in the rain

We die never knowing we die in great pain

We die oft forgotten we die seldom mourned

Our loved ones die with us our sacrifice spurned

Dead in our duty dead for their right

Dead for the leaders who don’t bloody fight

Come all ye, come all ye, come all ye young men

Come see all dead comrades from hill and from glen

Image by Rachael Parkinson

Bone

A tibia shard left carelessly

buried at the rim of a shell hole

made by the blast that

unmade him

sieved from the soil

its position recorded,

another piece from the debris of war

analysis will show he had a diet rich in fish

was old for a soldier

possibly from the Isles

will not say who he left

whether he was kind or selfish

perhaps he could cure by laying on hands

he does not lie under uniform cross

ranks crisp white on pristine green

an army unmarching

death in neat order

not here the images of broken body

blood and entrail

flesh ripped open

bone shattered carelessly

the bugle which sounds the Last Post

also rallies again for the charge to death

another army to be broken on the guns

another enemy to be beaten 

another cemetery to be filled

another landscape to be scarred

another bone to be uncovered

When all the white birds die

The drone is but a speck hovering,

a threat, its cold eye covering

each rustling move, each trembling step.

Below, defenceless they creep

while other hunters stalk the deep

cover where they hide, and kill for fun.

They come with tank and gun

for power and for gain, strew the broken

bodies on the plain.  The numbers taken,

made nightly News, a God-forsaken record

to prove how expert is the killing.

Who mourns the lives like these

spent harming none at all?

Who cries out stop when they fall?

There is no peace.  There is no recall. and all the white doves die.

Burial Rites

I hoped death would come

with choirs round the mound

of ancient stupidities

Chanting    we are one

hard won so that

none questioned it was right

I thought it given

those final skirmishes of hate

seen as the stench of old

I though we knew

equal is equal is balance

would not tip into the mire

I thought our sense

would not bring us from the heights

down to these pains of ignorance

I see rage spread

seeping from our scourging

whipped in by lesser men

I feel the blindness

seeking for the night

cocooned in self

I have certainty

the dragon’s teeth are sown

armies will fight to death

I carve the stone

in this wilderness

HERE MADMEN LIE

Image Military Material

 At Guillemont Wood (1917)

One night was a real horror

So many ambulances knocked out

Tyres blown off, wheels blown off

One thrown into a crater was clinging to the steep side

We slung a hook round the axle hauled it back

The wounded inside, who had earned a trip home

Were splintered with shrapnel

All we could do was load them on the lorry

Six runs that night

Lorry floor swimming with blood

You cannot describe what we saw

So numb after the last run, when someone shouted

What’s the matter with you, seen a ghost

I could not speak

Long time till I could speak

I crawled into the lorry, lay down on the floor

Uniform soaked in blood, sodden with it

Thinking

If they saw this back home

They wouldn’t have it

This has to stop

Image by Cinnamon Press

  COLKITTO

George Walker has had short stories and poetry in magazines and anthologies in the Uk and North and South America. He has three poetry collections and nine poetry pamphlets. 

He read from his Tartan Noir Crime novel, A Dish Served Cold, at the Bloody Scotland Festival in 2021.

The story for children, The Glass Cat, was published in 2022.  

There are six Sebastian Symes Victorian Detective stories available on the internet as e-books, Mx Publishing/Endeavour Press.  The latest two in the series,The Case of the Rat Catcher's Granddaughter and The Case of the Feverly Hoard are available in paperback from Amazon. 

Colkitto performs regularly in the Glasgow area and

in Cumbria. 

He was First in the Scottish Writers Centre Short Story Competition 2011, their

Poetry Competition 2012, Siar Sceal Hanna Greally Poetry 2014, Second in  Pendle War Poetry 2019, first in Autumn Voices Acrostic Poem Competition 2020.  He was joint winner in Cinnamon Press Poetry Pamphlet Competition 2023.

https://gwcolkitto.co.uk/

 With thanks to pixabay.com for the images.

When all the white birds die by Andreia Joldes Burial Rites by Sue Rickhuss