Photo is of the Glaswegian soldier John Gardner White, age of death listed as 20. Photo courtesy of the Imperial War Museum.
Lieutenant John Gardner White © IWM (HU 127373)
A war poem written as a half-rhyme exercise at Read 2 Write and inspired by Wilfred Owen (of course) and by the wonderful WW2 anti-war song Bomber's Moon by Mike Harding.
In Sepia
As grey light filters through the misty dawn
we rise from mud where we had hunkered down
and make that climb to face the greedy shells,
the bullets that await the whistle's shrill.
Where men face sorrow lost in cooling blood;
on wire, in holes where other men have bled.
Oh mother, father, let your hearts be broken
and then with grief for me you may be stricken.
For grief you will not find a remedy
a long held portrait is your memory.
You filled with pride the day that I was called
and in that frame my face will not grow old.
