At the cenotaphs
the holders and the representatives of power,
the generals, the admirals, the air-vice-marshals
pretend to mourn
the powerless that their predecessors murdered
by proxy as dictators also do
through words like Glory and Defence
and Fatherland and Honour
and Democracy
and Western Way-of-life - which we've now reduced to lifestyle.
Masters of claptrap, they call
mass-murder sacrifice
but horses are the inevitably-unsung heroes
the unremembered victims
before replacement by the tank
and the Holy Grail is in the basement of a bank.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
Excellent ideas and expressed so well, I don't know if you have ever read All is Quiet on the Western Front but there's an unreal description of a horses death in the first world war, un sung heros, the 'masters of claptrap' and the beginning words. Well written and excellent themes. Nice one. Lacey