Nurse

Nurse

Unaccustomed as I am to hospitals, I’m sure I can help the effort.

Unaccustomed as I am to workers, I know that I won’t be caught short.

I mean how hard can it be?

Unaccustomed as I am to hardship, I can put up with a roughing it a tad

Unaccustomed as I am to foreign lands, of course it’s not a fad.

I mean what is there to see?

One has to support the war effort

So I’ll serve King and Country as a VAD

As a field nurse helping young men,

Walking wounded, shelled shocked and sad.

I’ve had three months training and I’m ready for the trench

Though I haven’t seen a dead body as it rots within sickening stench.

But they tell me I am ready and I’m cut out for battle nursing

And I volunteered, so there’s no reversing.

I mean - how hard can it be?

By Linda Prince

Rose, my Rose

Rose, my Rose

Christmas Eve, nineteen seventeen,

I think of my Rose, just seventeen.

The tenor croons, the first little song of love.

In Picardy roses are blooming.

In Piccadilly my Rose is blooming.

The tenor swoons and our roads may be far apart.

Enlisting for France the Tommy singing,

In Petty France baby Tommy is singing,

Lambert Murphy on record in my heart.

Rose humming our song full of memories and bygones

Rose, my Rose remembering our love that is gone by

The song is the last little song she hears.

By Linda Prince

Fields

Fields

The wind rustles over the carpet and the soft mist of shade sways

Green.

Curving in concord, each blade the brother of the next.

One veneer, one hue.

Yet every blade is different, every blade contains history,

Evolution wrapped up in a small green shoot.

The breeze glides over the meadow and the soft haze of hues swing

Red.

Bending in unison, each poppy the sister of the next.

One covering, one tone.

Yet every stalk is distinctive, every stalk holds bygones,

Evolution wrapped up in a small red flower.

The chill envelops the fields and the soft fog of colours fall

Red, yellow, black, brown, white.

Collapsing in sympathy, each the sibling of the next.

Blankets of colour, many shades.

Yet every soldier is unique, every comrade preserves a bloodline

Evolution’s highest pinnacle wrapped up in a Flanders shroud.

So many colours side by side, brothers in arms, daughters of time

Sleeping in Flanders Fields

By Linda Prince

We’ll raise a Glass

We’ll raise a Glass

The light is dimming, evening falls

As I am fallen.

My head is swimming, the day is dying

As am I.

And in my ears the jagged explosions of distant grenades.

In the gentlemen’s club they read the news

More casualities of war, the price of metal increases

They pay their subscriptions, I pay their dues.

My lips are cracked and I gasp with thirst.

Their bottle is cracked open and the liquid spills out

As drop by drop, life’s blood ebbs from those here cursed.

In a foreign field I stare up at the stars,

mud caked round my lips and clogging my throat.

In the Foreign Office they are propping up bars.

The lights are dimming, the barman wipes his eyes,

And in ‘Wipers’ many eyes are closing.

And in the Gentleman’s private club they raise one last glass

And gentle men and privates raise one last sigh.

They raise a toast to the fallen ones,

Whiskey chasers and slugs of fine malt slip down gullets before bed.

And somewhere on a bed of debris a slug slips through my head.

Goodnight.
 
Linda Prince