At an online spoken word event last night with Malvern Spoken Word, I read this poem which was penned for a publication to commemorate World War One. The anthology, Voices of 1919, was collated by Mike Alma, who invited local poets to write about a street in a village as the war came to an end. Mike supplied fictional addresses and families and allocated specific addresses to each poet.

Handicaps

Edith Hobday, at number fourteen,
eyes her Sarah. Sarah’s eyes gleam
yellow, like her skin, the pallor of wax,
a ‘canary girl’, munitions are packed;
life and death weigh heavy on backs.

Lawrie, he’s dour, too old to serve,
it would have been better to be a reserve.
He resented the lads away at war,
kept getting at John, getting bored.
While Edith gives thanks and praises the Lord.

Without the allotment, where would he be?
Good job all gardens are dug for victory.
Lawrie moans and groans all contradictory,
he carries on at John; like a plane, he drones
about now’t being right, and the pain in his bones. 

John is strapping for only fifteen,
Edith’s glad he’s young, imagine the scene
if all three were gone—God knows John’s keen—
two’s bad enough. And Sarah’s so grim,
she’s losing weight, becoming thin.

The fragrance of stew from number thirteen
Edith must put something in the tureen,
thinks of her lads, wonders how they’ve been,
their letters full of ‘send this, send that’,
no idea of her handicaps…

© 2016 Polly Stretton

Voices of 1919 collated by Mike Alma (Hen Race Press 2016)

Here’s a promo from one of the events that was held at the time: