This poem confronts the brutal legacy of the First World War through both history and personal memory. Written for the poet’s grandfather, a survivor of Kut-al-Amara, it weaves together battlefield horrors -- shrapnel, gas, burning oil fields -- with the inherited grief and futility of conflict. The piece bridges 1918 and today, questioning how war is remembered, justified, and repeated, its closing lines an indictment of ongoing violence in the name of empire and resource.
When Armistice day came to end
King’s letter -- blood ink from sea,
rejoice my friend’ is what Tommy had once said to me.
Mesopotamia -- the black bog of Ottoman
remember those on the banks of velvet Tigris,
Kaiser led a slew in Jihad the desert rape of Solomon
Oil mouths of burning hydrous nightmares from iron beds in rehab
On the Centenary of the Great War do we not hear youth?
could we not see what we were fighting for?
Returning to the same gates where Tommy had already warned us
Yet, the battle suits before and now still continue; posting death onto Persian shores
where our boys fell-- shrapnel cuts -- gas with sliced skin of mildew
circulating into poisoned pours.
Tommy saw posters protect our King now we see rolling news posts
to fight and defend our Queen -- Nothing great about war and its ghost,
boots walk in ancestral blood -- joining them in brave battle-song,
protect the Anglo-Persian oil reserve
desert red and rose --clipped mud -- How do we justify war and its
abhorrent wrongs!
Written for Thomas Duggan my grandfather --Who fought and survived the Battle at Kut-al-Amara, in Mesopotamia (Iraq) during the Great War, and received a medal for bravery and a letter from the King
Matt Duggan