The Veteran.

Sombre end of Autumn music
smoking through the misty twilight,
an accompaniment to the falling of the leaves.

I turn off the radio.

The phone rings.
The news is unexpected.
I write the details down upon a pad.

The old man, unconscious in intensive care,
was joking with me, only last weekend
as I sat at ease in his musty kitchen.
He talked about his manic years at war,
straight out of grammar school into the army,
a useful bod because he spoke good French.
He waved his fork about whilst talking Hitler,
sliced cheese stuck to his outstretched thumb.

"Bach at lunchtime? - Or would you rather hear Tchaikovsky?"

"Neither" I said. "I just like to hear you talk".

Now he lies wired up on the metal bed,
His voice a prisoner in his failing body;
his memories trapped inside his restless head
rocking silent on the single pillow.

Music, his quixotic Guardian Angel,
has always kept him sane at times of stress,
especially when shot up at Monte Casino,
but now, as the leaves fall like tarnished wings,
blotching the hospital grounds in reds and yellows,
he listens, listens, deeper than his heart thrums,

listens for an ambivalent call to arms.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
November 24th. - 25th. - December 4th. 2016.