Holding Back The Dream…
(on looking at a painting of Dover by Jane Rafter…)
In orderly fashion the wounded, the blind,
The rent torsos staving off death,
The smoking, silent, stinking soldiers suffering
Blighties, the shell-shocked, the amputees
And sundry other evacuees
Were herded aboard a steamer, unrefined,
Destined for the English coastline,
Leaving the Front, the hell and the war behind…
In awe, the infantryman was resigned
To regaining fitness, then convalescence;
The smoking, silent, stinking soldier daydreamed
Of Dover, its white cliffs, its hazy mornings
And sundry quayside moorings…
Such thoughts aboard the steamer he harboured,
Destined for that Kentish coastline,
Approaching home where the bereaved now laboured…
Pete Ray
7th January 2021
Just looked at the above painting and thought of a soldier’s mind’s eye daydreaming of Dover as he returned to England from the Great War with some injury to his shoulder or arm perhaps, waiting to be rehabilitated and then no doubt returned to the trenches…
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