Remembrance Sunday Poem by Rod Cox

Sunday,11 November 2018
In Dulce et Decorum est Pro Patria Mori: A Poem for Remembrance Sunday


SWEET

Due East of Nowhere lies a sandy shore,
Undulating, wriggling out from sea.
Lie on this naked beach with your amour,
Conjoin your limbs and set your passion free;
Enjoy your thoughts, because you cannot go and see.

AND

Each sorrowed soul that dwells there cannot leave:
This slice of shore a web around is weaved.

NOBLE

Dream you to go with me inland? Where cleaned-up Kids
Excited stare at guests there never are?
Come up and beg to take us home, their bids
Outdo each other in a wish bazaar;
Racing forward, pointing hands gesture maps in light,
Until at last we choose a child, a home, a plight, where
Mum must fast to feed us in her bairn's birth-right.

IT IS

Eating in a tent perched on the old house debris,
Sofa from the rubble - and completing the Marquee a
Table topped by tinned food wrapped in UN decree.

ON BEHALF OF

Prayers. "Thanks God we survive through our people's Laments."
Rebuild? - "Bombed houses make coffins and then become tents."
Offspring? - "Bred for Waste. I have 2 left from 8. God is great".


OUR FATHERLAND

Punctually at sunset, the drones fly over.
Actions don't change, you can't hide in a tent
There's nowhere to run to, no bed of clover.
Remember the fallen, but remember the rent.
Inside the Bivouac Mum tells her poppet:
Aircraft whine this way, that sound's a rocket.

TO DIE
Mother of Palestine, why don't your sons
Organise rebellion, acquire some big guns?
Reader and Leader, don't all we tell this story:
In Dulce et Decorum - est Pro Patria Mori.

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(Sweet and Noble it is to die for your Country,)