Pat Jones

Two Years In: 1916

Glory! It’s in the doing of our job —
From the digging of entrenchments, muddy
Meals and khaki shirts, right to the bloody
Orders to set out with wire snips, lob
A few whiz-bangs at Fritzy, earn our bob
And pence for home, and Mum, and King. Ruddy
Hell, it’s just till Christmas! If you study
All the papers, they say we’re just the mob...

England needed me. And him. And him. We
Packed up our troubles, me and every lad,
Saw no use in worries, waved farewell
And went along. Now they’re dead, only me
And corpses line this trench that one time had
A regiment of manhood. Glory? Hell.

Juleigh Howard-Hobson has always had a keen interest in those who put on uniforms and headed off into The Great War’s “grey land of death” (to paraphrase Sassoon). Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Mezzo Cammin, The Raintown Review, The Barefoot Muse, The Shit Creek Review, Soundzine, Candelabrum and many other print and online journals.