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[Vincent Turner]

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- I am concered that this reads a little to close to prose, which is not my intention.
i have tried to mix up the stanza's in regards to thier look and thier flow. Do the line breaks work? is the ending slightly to contrived???


Passing stalls of scattered loot
I force
a slow pace.

Hand in hand
we pass Sunday-market spoils,
Yellowed comics,dog eared
& crispy dry.
Coloring  pencils packaged
like flattened rainbows,
I was a moth to light.

Behind a clutter of bric-a-brac stalls
We worm our way to where
a skin rumpled gent
in perfect ironed attire
beckons passers by
with a stump arm and broad smile.

Noticing my questioning brow,
on how his shoulder
led to nothing but a blunt end,
he recites
how he lost it to a mortar,
how the blood sprayed the air
like a carnival firework
whilst soft whiskered boys
buried their head into the sands
and wailed for the words
of their mothers.
Father bought me a keyring bullet
and refused to accept the change.

Back in the stuttering worm of shoppers
I ask father
why to mention Grandad was forbidden-
he answered with a gaze out to sea.

Thirty years on
Now death has can-opened the tight lidded silence
I discover the unease
of our history
in a box-
From his mother
to her best friend Betty
a never-sent-letter
on how Granddad
had met a French whore on duty
and would not be coming home again.

[danny fahey]

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the ending is fine for me, its the beginning that probably I'd rework. I think  I'd mentioned the son/father relationship much earlier.

Maybe even introduce the silence on a certain topic

and then the old digger

and then the father's response?

Just thoughts.

[Vincent Turner]

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Casualties of War

In the stuttering line of shoppers
I question him
on his tense-jaw silence.
Why, when I ask
about his father
who jetted
from these shores
as a young soldier,
he'd divert my attention
to the Sunday market spoils-
those scattered loots of yesteryear.
The dog eared Beano’s
read swiftly by brisk coastal breeze,
colouring pencils
packed like flat rainbows,
the car mats, baby bibs
hamster wheels,
dried dill and fennel-
the bric-a-brac kernel
of every seaside town.

We worm our way in an awkward hush
to where a shabby skinned gent
beckons with stump arm
and broad smile.
Noticing my intrigue
on how his shoulder
led to nothing but a blunt end
he reminisces to us,
the audience,
the hellish bellow of mortars
and the wail and yell
of soft whiskered boys,
who buried their head in the hands
on beaches punctured and bloody.

We bought a key ring bullet,
in my hand it gleamed innocent,
and with promise
like a newly weds ring.

Thirty years on
in the attic of all things past,
I've discover the unease
of our history,
and Can-opened
that tight-lid silence.
In a box,
from his mother
to her best friend Betty
a never-sent-letter
on how Granddad
had met French whore on duty
and would not be coming home again.

[MsWizard]

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Vincent, I'm fairly useless as a critic simply because I dont know enough to critic intelligently. But I know what I like. And I like this. It's a story in stanza and it compelled me from the first line to the last. Much enjoyed~