The function of suburbia

They marked their boundaries

with privet and Leylandii 
they strimmed and mowed regularly –
nothing happened for centuries.

Decades passed them by

in the comparison of flower beds.

Jealously, they tamed the wild wood

with each trimmed lawn and neat rockery.

Careful not to be too friendly

they observed with furrowed brows

the ambition of neighbours’ sheds

the rows of imprisoned begonias.

The function of suburbia

to push back its silent terror.

Passchendaele

 












 

Because an Archduke was killed

they were called on to serve their country.

Frank joined first – the infantry

then brother Tom, an engineer.
They watched their comrades pass by

blown to atoms, drowned in mud

in a colossal sacrifice of blood

to stuttering machine gun and artillery.

Artisans, they were not born to fight.

The Lichfield sons were ordinary.

The lies of crowds took their history.

Hague’s plan for the salient blew them out.

Frank died first, then sapper Tom

from wounds sustained at Ypres and Pilckem.

Note: two relatives, on my father’s side, Frank and Tom Hatchett, brothers from Lichfield in Staffordshire served in the First World War. Frank was a private in the 16^th battalion of the Sherwood Foresters (the Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment), Tom was a sapper in the Royal Engineers. They both died during the Third Battle of Ypres, in 1917. Frank on the 20^th of September and Tom on the 10^th of October

PS. As I was writing this sonnet I looked out of the window and saw this rather remarkable cloud formation, which I took a photograph of

A sense of danger

 












We must warn you of the estuary

of its deep water and savage tides

there are perils here, abundantly

we are the guardians of the outside.

In informing you that there might be

the violence of a sudden squall

we are only doing our duty.

You could slip. The sky might fall.

Imagine your anxiety

trapped alone, in the dark, on the mud.

We must warn you of the estuary –

there might be a flash flood

a freak storm could wash you away.

Danger is only one step from beauty.

World Cup 2014

We’ll patch up some half-baked side

and impose upon bemused strangers

the delusion of our national pride.

As if in some latter-day crusade

to shore up our failed imperium

we’ll hitch up our beer bellies and tattoos

and mount a futile campaign.

We never win. We know we’ll lose.

With our polite lies and cucumbers

we say that winning does not count

when the game goes to penalties

But we are only lying to ourselves.

We’ll watch our dream soar over the bar.

It’s losing that shows us who we are.