Mike Jenkins - Welsh Poet & Author
  • Mike's Blog
  • New Book!
  • About Mike
  • Contact
  • What's the point?
  • The Climbing Tree
  • The Fugitive Three
  • Publications
  • Red Poets

TARGET IN HER OWN HOME

11/14/2010

0 Comments

 
  When the Royal Welch Fusiliers took the field at last Sunday’s south Wales derby led by their regimental goat, to the strains of ‘Men of Harlech’ (sung by Bryn Terfel, I’m sure), I seemed to be the only one in the entire stadium not clapping along. Cardiff and Swansea fans – despite the Bluebirds’ Welsh dragons and St. David’s banners and Swansea’s several Union Jacks – clapped in unison.

   If my friend and comrade Jack Gilbert – a true socialist from Derby – were still alive, he would have stood with us in our motionless protest. As would another absent friend, missing the game, who has been on many anti-war marches.

   On Remembrance Sunday, I wonder who I should remember. Should it be my Pontypridd grandfather, who fought in the trenches of the 1st World War, was wounded and gassed, but never really criticized the futility of it all? Or my Somerset grandpa who, because of his deformed spine, was a stretcher-bearer there and, according to family lore, was changed forever by what he saw?

   I knew this grandpa much better than the Welsh one, who died when I was young. He never spoke about his experiences; in fact, I only heard from my brother about how seriously he was affected. It was so profound that, a lay preacher before the war, he never returned to a chapel after it. His faith must have been considerably questioned.

   I also remember clearly from my close associations with N. Ireland (my wife’s from the Falls Road) those who have been killed by the occupying forces there, the British army. There was the man up my wife’s street, shot dead because his exhaust backfired and many joy-riders executed because they drove through road-blocks. There was the innocent roadie of the well-known group Bananarama killed in west Belfast after a night out and a young boy shot dead because his paint-brush was mistaken for a gun! Worst of all , there was one of the most appalling atrocities carried out there in Dublin and Monaghan, perpetrated by the UVF, who could not have bombed and killed so many without close collusion from the SAS.

   It is precisely because I have seen at first hand the terror deployed by the British army as an occupying power, that I cannot join in these celebrations of ‘our boys’.

   Not only that, but my wife’s former brother-in-law was actually in the British army, even though he was a Catholic from the Ardoyne.  Once, we visited his house in West Germany and stayed there a short while. I have never encountered such a violent society. Fights, wife-beatings and downright animosity to local people were widespread. Army life reflected the nature of that profession: these were men and women trained for violence, for killing. Whenever I hear bland talk of ‘heroes’, I think of one officer I talked to there who expressed great support for Hitler!

   If remembrance is ever going to be meaningful, then it must include all the victims of war: soldiers on every side and above all, the innocents who had no choice in the matter. At present Remembrance Day is used as propaganda, suggesting that only the armed forces have suffered. We need fewer bugles and more Bob Dylan’s ‘Masters of War’.

 

 

 

                TARGET IN HER OWN HOME
 

She twitched and her arms shot up

into the air, because of the war.

At any sudden sound from a pan

or door slammed very loud

there was an explosion in her head.

 

 

She had known it for years:

evacuated from the shop in a scare,

the man shot dead because of the back-fire

of the exhaust of his car, the soldier

at her feet near her front door

who swivelled to face her, gun cocked.

 

 

It made no difference that no-one

actually called it by its name :

‘The Troubles’ sounded so domestic,

till she thought about road-blocks

and army with blacked-up faces

so easily driven through at night.

 

 

Her twitch wouldn’t go away.

It followed her across the sea,

in every room whatever her mood,

whatever the news, her jerking upward :

target in her own home.

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.



    Archives

    November 2019
    September 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    April 2010
    March 2010
    February 2010
    January 2010
    December 2009
    November 2009
    October 2009
    September 2009
    August 2009
    July 2009
    June 2009

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
Photos used under Creative Commons from johnharveypegg, Dai Lygad, joncandy, victoriapeckham, David Holt London, aeneastudio, fromthevalleys-, Metro Centric, andymag, David Bergin Photography, villunderlondon, @markheybo, joncandy, Martin Pettitt, Between the Shadows, joncandy, johnkell, olivia.barrie, villunderlondon, Lake Worth, MittenStatePhototog, frankieleon, robynejay, joncandy, mcaretaker, Thomas Leuthard, Knight Foundation, joncandy, Joybot, brownpau, Iburiedpaul, villunderlondon, amit_gaur, abegum, simonw92, beeveephoto, Aislinn Ritchie, Shannon Green Photography, joncandy, Nick J Webb, Vish Menon, AberCJ, gcoldironjr2003, joncandy, World Can't Wait, jonl1973, Watt_Dabney, petejam70, Kerndav, MJ Klaver, joncandy, Daquella manera, spratt504, joncandy, ashleigh290, Glyn Lowe Photoworks., afanatochka, r.nial.bradshaw, themendingnews, rikkis_refuge, Matthew Straubmuller, joncandy, onnola, final gather, funktionhouse, marioanima, joncandy, Dai Lygad, joncandy, Guttorm Flatabø, brittreints, garryknight, villunderlondon, wonker, Martin Pettitt, joncandy, tnarik, AJC1, simonw92, wardyboy400, joncandy, Bombardier, joncandy, Cargo Cult, joncandy, joncandy, SeanOConnor2010, Feral78, comedy_nose, Abode of Chaos, mkairishstudies, joncandy, avail, Jörg Weingrill, Gwydion M. Williams, Leshaines123, KiltBear, eisenbahner, Capt' Gorgeous, Francis Storr, New Chemical History, Matthew Black, jc.winkler, Gwenael Kere, Karen Roe