Who has Won

Who has Won?

When the last of the tanks finally rumbled away

I counted the cost of the war

My personal bill to pay 

When I’d lost hope for the missing 

And buried the dead 

I said a prayer for the living

And picked bits of shrapnel out of my head 

I went to where the corner shop once was 

I half expected to see a dog 

Anxiously barking outside because 

Its owner had just popped in

As she did every week 

For her newspaper and a bottle of gin

A sullied note I could see laid there

With a couple of flowers which made me stop and stare

The petals so incredibly bright, amidst the grey 

They would have been a delightful sight

If the note didn’t end RIP 

Paying respect to the dead family 

I left

I stepped over limbs 

Unable to identify foot or hand

Sticking out of the charcoaled land

Some still in small piles, burning 

No one will be returning

To these fires, these funeral pyres

To gather these remains 

Remains that bear no names 

I went to the train tracks 

Where the platform was always stacked

With people going here, there and everywhere 

I never thought I’d miss this

But where I used to commute

I could hardly compute

Those trains that once started my days 

Lay silent and still, like the corpses they carried 

Shattered windows in every carriage 

Children were knelt on the hard steel line 

Digging amongst the rubble 

Not trying to cause trouble 

Focused with no sense of time 

Hoping to find dead man’s treasure 

Their knees bloodied and sore 

They don’t feel pain anymore 

I moved on

I passed crying babies

Held by men discussing in groups 

The if, buts and maybe’s 

I left 

It was getting late

And I had no desire to participate

I went South along the water’s edge

As a youth I’d once had goose bumps after kissing a boy by this river

Now it was floating bodies that made me shiver

I cried with grief from every pore

I cried more than I’d ever cried before 

I howled 

But how long do you cry for?

I cried out loud 

Aware of the echoing sound of my scream

‘How could you do this 

This Destruction and killing 

With bombs and guns and fists?’

In tears

I walked till I came to a barbed wire fence

A makeshift border 

Pretending to keep us safe and maintain order

I punched and kicked it with my boot

I rattled it hard 

Till a soldier threatened to shoot 

Never as strong as I think I am

I suddenly felt so small, I couldn’t recall feeling smaller 

Fear replaced the anger in my mind 

Fear created by traitors and dictators 

Fear that will erase mankind 

I let go

Blood on my hands

And I ran

Back along my streets 

Now familiar repeats of wartorn cities

I once pitied 

I ran with aching legs till I reached home 

Which used to be my safe place 

But my loved ones don’t exist here

I reside alone 

Just me and a cat with 8 lives 

She will be hungry

My neighbour was outside 

An elderly gent

His body frail and bent 

He was leaning over his garden gate

As I arrived 

He looked at me with deadened eyes 

I searched them

Whilst he released a heavy sigh 

But they were as dead as the corpses I'd just left 

Dead like his wife, now gone  

He turned away from me still muttering on

And the last words I heard him say

‘Who on earth do they think has won?’