The Spawn of WarA Poem by David Lewis PagetHe met his Dad for the first time when His father came marching home, After the war to end all wars From London through to Rome. He’d never seen him before he stooped As if to pluck out a thorn, And asked his Ma in his army suit, ‘Just when was the young one born?’
He hadn’t been home for five long years And Jeremy then was four, He constantly seemed to be adding up The years that he’d been at war, His Ma would say, ‘He’s a miracle, Young Jeremy went full term, I carried him for a year,’ she said, ‘It must have been wartime sperm!’
Then his father growled, and his mother howled As he placed her on his knee, And running his hand on sacred ground Said, ‘all this belongs to me!’ His mother cried when he said she lied In the years of his growing up, And treated him, apart from the rest When he called him a ‘scoundrel’s pup.’
His father clung to his Khaki suit It was washed and pressed each week, ‘You never know when they’ll call me up If this treaty doesn’t keep.’ He worked back down in the coal mines where He’d emerged to answer the call, Black from coal like a demon’s soul But he’d gone, to fight for them all.
But Jeremy never saw him smile, He never could do enough, The others would go on trips the while But Jeremy got a cuff, ‘What have I done,’ he’d often say As his father sat and yawned, ‘Don’t come bothering me today,’ And mutter of ‘wartime spawn.’
The years went on and the son had gone To live on his own, nearby, But always came to visit his folks Each month, till the one July He came around to the house and found That the dust his father choked, Was sat so deep in his lungs that he Had suffered a massive stroke.
‘Your father’s down in the hospital, He might not ever come out,’ His mother cried, while his brother, Clyde, ‘He’s all washed up,’ he’d shout. The others wouldn’t go visit him They had much too much to do, So Jeremy took his favourite book To visit him in Ward 2.
His father sat in a wheelchair there And he looked up in surprise, ‘Nobody’s come to see me, lad,’ He said, with tears in his eyes. ‘Why, of all people, would you come,’ As he helped him into his cot, ‘What do you think, you silly old man, You’re the only Dad I’ve got!’
And he read to him from his favourite book And he sat and held his hand, And the years of hurt that disconcert Lay buried in No Man’s Land, For the feeling came back in his limbs As the father did atone, And Jeremy came, the spawn of war, ‘Come on, I’m taking you home!’
David Lewis Paget © 2015 David Lewis PagetFeatured Review
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