Forfeit by Di Coffey

War was ever thus;
created by politicians
who place uniforms
on faceless men,
push rifles in hands,
send them to kill

or be killed
in searing dust,
the smell of blood
in their nostrils,
houses and torn bodies,
war-litter on the ground.

But in my street
is the boy I watched grow up;
a cheeky, gutsy kid
who failed to find a job,
enlisted and marched
his boots into Iraq;

returned sans legs,
sans mind, sans hope
while Tony Blair,
who ignored the
marching million
protesting against the war,

planned the next one.

Di Coffey, a self-confessed old leftie, has had her poems published widely online and in print.  Profits from the sale of her poetry pamphlet, ‘The Tugboatman’s Daughter’, are being donated to The Multiple Sclerosis Society UK.

http://www.thetugboatmansdaughter.co.uk