WW1: THE LISTENING POST... A NEW POEM...

Listening Post At Left-Field…

Under the scant cover of night’s creeping gloom,

He scrabbled through a sap

Angled towards the offensive left flank

And to a listening post, bedecked in slime;

Slithering low into the sheer doom

Of this silent, subterranean trap

Amid stenches acrid and dank,

He hustled, his rancid skin daubed in grime…

Between shallow, earthen walls exposed

He hunched, cold and alone in silence,

His breath inaudible as he assimilated

Even the slightest anomaly or minute sound;

Scurrying rats to familiarity were disposed

And lice remained a pesky penance,

Yet his sheer resolve was concentrated

As this volunteer kept his ear to the ground:

Boots sucking at mud,

Stakes struck by hammers muffled,

The telltale clipping of coiled wire;

A shovel’s tentative, earthy thud,

Voices, whispered and stifled,

Or the location of a sniper’s fire…

Night sounds confused and confounded,

Interpretations swirled inside his head;

Yet he ignored the rescue of enemy wounded 

And the carrying away of their dead…

Away from life’s repugnant extremes,

Skirting, I falter into a sap,

Angled towards the suggested left-field

And to an observation post in isolation;

I mither about recurring dreams,

Watchful, silent in this boundary trap,

Guarded behind hesitancy’s shield

And harassed, recused from participation…

Pete Ray

19th June 2020

The idea of a ‘listening post’ during World War 1 is astounding now, for a sap had to be dug perhaps 30 metres forwards into no-man’s-land in order to facilitate the listeners.

Sound equipment would be used too but with both enemy armies doing the same kind of thing, situations of extreme danger would have prevailed…

I was once described by a teacher friend, Rachael Russell, as being rather left-field, hence the above poem because I often feel myself veering left into what might be described as an 'observation of life’ post…  

It’s what I do…