Collateral Damage Poem by Les Littleford

Collateral Damage



I wish I could remember more.

Through misty memories
Old family photos
And tales half told
I half remember Dad

“Like Fred Astaire”
..they said
“Not the man I married, ”
Mum said,
When he returned from the war.

Tall and slim with pipe...
Putter in hand in our back garden...
Occasionally we would garden together,
Down past the swing:
It was safe down there,
His territory.

These are the images I remember
Clearer then the man himself:
Mum I remember:
We were hers!

He would bring her flowers
“We can’t afford them! ”


On family holidays
There was an uneasy truce:
He tried to dance,
To serenade her,
But her hurt was too deep,
The holidays short

Mum and I would have our cosy tea together
Dads warming in the oven
For solitary consumption
Before retreat to the RSL
the new Safe territory

As he lay, dying,
He whispered
“Look after your mum for me”.

And her emptiness, her loneliness,
Was now complete
He had loved her so but knew not how to show it:
And spent what we didn’t have in vain attempts.
She was left with the pieces.

Oh what a bloody war.

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Les Littleford

Les Littleford

Warwickshire, England
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