War Museum Poem by Danny Draper

The road bled in to the little town
By peaceful hills it trickled down
Past the pulse of stock and chaff
Lapped the island cenotaph,
Past the list of men bled out
Haemorrhaged to a global shout
That left the country anaemic
And generations maimed and sick,
It steady flowed by disused stores and
Abandoned garages onward poured
By cautious trends in bold commerce and
Fashions to spark endless discourse,
'Cross rail tracks that trucks replaced
Progress knows its own mistakes
Disjunct signs spaced out to see 'em
Relics of conflict in the War Museum,
Glad notion that this obsolete
Finally rests and is complete
Numb husk within a peaceful land
Germ upon a young scarred hand,
Virulent contagion now restrained
Benign the seed a weed contains
And dormant lies til conflict's flood
Has it germinate in foreign mud,
Artefacts there held within
Pressed the hearts of young brave skin
Now aged all or gone complete
The sign abides the empty street,
Enticing all to understand
Silent artifices close at hand
Here lies war in spicks and specks
Cold and old as time detracts,
Gone a way to recall not mourn
Barking madness echoes scorn
But rest it now in fear in state
Let it lie here and disintegrate,
Let peaceful silence of bird and wind
Replace hatred, guns and battle hymns
Let all the pain of grief ground sorrow
Be cleansed by peace for all tomorrow,
Let it be known by freedom's chore
And sacrifice of those passed before
And by our care for desired change
That its relocation is not strange,
That we have grown to realise a dream
And war is an artefact in a museum.

Danny Draper
19/3/2014