DUR I NG THES E W A RS


Our masks of war are pale and taut
and stretch across our face like thought
and squeeze our eyes when we sleep at night,
press on our lips a little too tight.
We take them off from time to time,
lift them away with a sense of crime
and hope to find that our neighbours too
have bared their faces, look quite new
with lips that move and eyes that. turn
and special glances that seem to burn.
But all at once we see their mask
inside their flesh which makes.us ask
did we dream those glances, were they true;
and was that peace, was it really you?
Our
When lonely education made her .stamp
across my head and the streets I knew-were damp
and dark and lamplights faded, sky and stars
became a window set behind the bars
of all my thought, and sleep began to cease
and aches began that mobilised my. peace
to rigid war, and the world outside was damned
in one dark sin for never having shammed
a thought; and fields became a ghostly brain,
their green a painted coat to hide the stain
my thought would find beneath; and every ac t
was like a moral choice, a sort of tract
on how to live; and every sight and sound
was a play performed behind a veil that bound
this watcher to his chair---an actor Who
waited in the wings but nevergot his'cue:


Growing aware that war is S in
I stood and felt it hem me in,
it gripped my belly without a cause,
and spread/by grim and abstract.laws.
And while I tried to stop it grow,
chased its legions to and fro,
I knew I had no peace or. art
to exorcise its smallest part.
Love is the only thing that gives,
by long rehearsal, sedatives.
It takes the hated one-remove
from all we think and wish to prove:
then legions have no field for war
where every space is held in store
for something quite beyond the earth
Ahicl
and yetdirs light and endless birth.
and
Their bodies are with us Hret
ses
there's no one here), their kiss/ interfere
just where we thought we'd set
our pitch on a certain cheek; and fear
hisses like gas across our eyes
as if they'd breathed; and suddenly night
loses the meaning of her stars and dies
and troops move again, in silent flight.
glast
We can't go on with these in our ranks,
the vanguard's divided, our columns are bent,
we've got no leaders, only ghouls and cranks,
the front's uncertain, our bullets are spent,


we're out in the mist for ever now,
it's no-man's-land, our patrols are lost,
boots let water, the W ind makes us bow,
we're struggling for nothing at untold cost,
the enemy's gone but hasn't said where,
the guns are ready but the cordite's damp,
the rations are hard and there's death in the air,
take us away from this terrible camp,
it's inside and out, it's dumb and it's loud,
it's walking and still, alive yet a ghost,
take us out of this misty shroud,
we're like dead guards with Tout a post!
The hills are still there and the crack of % wind,
c.ui a
lodies
the climb up the path, the bodal pinned
to the earth, the scrape of the so ound of the gu uns, 5
the word of order like a holy script, the runs
across green space, the boy that tripped on a wire
and never got up, the howl of a dog in the fire
of a house on the hill and the digging of my nails
in the earth to try to burrow away from, the flails
granhg alone
of the wind of the shells, and the womenA XXEXXXXXET
uutil
in their house - till I came, and the yellow stone
that turned to a man who lay there still and the death
orf its nightly rounds that made their choide, and the breath
that suddenly left the child I was with, and the scream
we had to believe must come from a dream,
they're all still there with their silent stare,
draining the snlight, bleeding the air.


Duri ng these wars
there may be a pause
when our martial, laws
seem about to collapse
Eros
and dxeaning saps
or gently traps
the impatient heart
and makes it 'start
at the touch, of his dart.
There may be' release
from red-capped police
and parleys for peace,
and something soft
like a dove in a loft
may as ppear to waft
in front of our eyes
that are taut and wise
with murder, lies.
And we'll cometo believe
I e
that here's a reprive
in which we'll grieve
our losses less
and even bless
our guns and mess.
But darts of love
make W ounds and shove
the mated dove
from off her perch
and guns then lurch
and newly search
the ground for holes
where screaming souls
await the tolls


of a country bell
that used to tell
no tale of hell
but now beats out
its tones of doubt
like a victim's shout.
War makes its mark
on field and park,
: is clear and statk.
our-feberoso-dapky
Many alarms were heard last night
aut
and gentle hearts were
st tretched Atight
and voices called that were never heard
and men were seen who hadn't stirred.
Pillows were pushed and blankets torn,
unknown babies were suddenly born,
girls kissed lovers twice their age
locked in the sleep of their parents' rage ;
mothers called out to children gone
who'd long since ceased to see the sun,
and boys touched friends who'd never been
alive or dead and were best unseen.
Untroubled night went on as before,
turning as surely as a dockyard whore,
letting her men come up and release
their urgent claims for a settled peace.
But peace wasn't right for the thousand rooms
where dreams revolved and lonely wombs
gave birth to soldiers, factions, fights,
Yelles
and screamed for terror at theghastly sights.
But then this morning the world was still there,
Coel and CMcetd
artiner
-eertain in her unbreken stare,
ilk


as if what we dreamed was our necessary lot,
wald
and each wil burn in his separate cot.
Our tactical movements are S clear and smooth,
our lines so straight, our trenches,drained
Hor-sumhig.tot, - alamed, uncouth
So dry that nothing hot, unc outh
can happen now, no trooper brained
by the butt-end of a gun in the dead
of night or shot in the leg and left
to lie for perhaps eternity.
Our bed
is clean, not ctewling now. In the cleft
of rock a sterile water runs, not blood.
At the tree where bullets stung we hang
no flags; our marching feet avoid the mud,
we know no drill or ever sang.
We're soldiers-born who learned to fight
at home, in silence, even peace;
our faces, muscles war, our ranks are tight,
our bodies, limbs are out on lease.
A war is in the S treets; there
stand its marshals in blue suits
and harmless civil hats; its stare
is in those eyes; ;; no barracks, brutes
are needed here, its purposes
are universal now; its haunts
chalicus
are rooms and passages, its calluses
are broken bones and eyes; ; the taunts
and checks of discipline, the fear
at night, are now our civil hesitations,


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