"Remembrance Sunday"

“Remembrance Sunday”

Was it the throbbing in his head

Or the growling in his stomach

That woke him?

He didn’t want to wake up.

He was cold and hungry, and with sleep,

At least sometimes, came oblivion.

When it wasn’t fiery nightmares

And for that the drink usually sufficed.

He pulled the thin blanket around him

A’top his cardboard mattress.

The throbbing grew louder.

He’d had a warm sleeping bag

Until last week when he woke to find

Drunken teenagers pissing on it,

And, not knowing if it was piss or petrol,

He ran, in terror, leaving all behind him.

That night he’d spent cowering behind

A waste bin, near a Supermarket

Trying to master his terror

While the sores on his legs

Itched and festered!

Still the throbbing in his head

Grew louder.

Reluctantly he crawled

Across the cardboard

In the shop doorway.

And there, marching to the beat of a drum,

Be-chained and resplendent,

Pompous and portly,

Marched the Lady Mayoress,

And the Aldermen,

And the town council

Attended by Army Cadets

With a banner

With  Sea  and Air Cadets

And a single bass drum that

Throbbed throbbed throbbed

In his head.

Old habits die hard.

He snapped to attention

And saluted the flag!

He would have worn  his medals

But he sold them long ago

For the price of a full English Breakfast

With a fried slice and a cup of tea.

His jerky salute caught

The Lady Mayoress’s eye,

She took one look and turned primly away

Her chins quivering !

They were, after all, honouring the gallant dead

Of two World Wars and many smaller ones.

They had no time for the survivors

Or those who merely crawled away.

They who had sacrificed their courage

Upon the Altar of their Nation’s Wars.

And having spent it had nothing left for themselves

It was clear, the Nation had forgotten them

The Nation didn’t care.

As the parade drew away

The throbbing in his head died away too.

And he sat, wrapped in his thin blanket

On his piece of cardboard

And he remembered the fallen.

As though it were yesterday!

More vividly than the Mayoress

Or her minnions.

The Mayoress was dry eyed but he shed tears

They dropped on the sores from his last burning

Which were on the skin grafts he had earned

Wading through liquid fire on Sir Galahad

In Port Pleasant, trying to rescue his mates.

After the parade, and a wreath and a hurried  prayer

The Lady Mayoress sat down to a hearty lunch.

“Remind me, dear,” she said to her husband,

“Remind me to phone the Chief Constable

To ask why our Remembrance Sunday parade route

Was lined with drunks and vagrants”

But she needn’t have worried

The receding throbbing wasn’t the drum

It was his tired heart finally giving up

To septic shock.

Burns on skin grafts do not heal

Especially when one is unwelcome

At the hospital, and the disapproval

Of the nurses and doctors

Frightens a man who spent all his courage

Years before  in the service and uniform

Of a grateful nation!

Copyright © Res JFB 18th April 2013