The Sandbag Times Issue No: 45

Poetry Corner
On reaching the top of the hill I traced
the inscriptions on the war memorial,
leaned against it like a wishbone.
The dove pulled freely against the sky,
an ornamental stitch. I listened, hoping to hear
your playground voice catching on the wind.
By Mike Woods
I am grateful to Pablo Snow, editor of The Sandbag
Times for the opportunity to write this section of the
magazine. I am delighted to be able to include a
poem by Jane Weir, one of the poets prescribed on
the AQA GCSE syllabus in the section entitled
‘Power and Conflict’. Her moving poem, ‘Poppies’
appears below. It was commissioned by Carol Ann
Duffy, the Poet Laureate as one of ten poems published
in The Guardian newspaper in response to
the conflict in Afghanistan. A film in which Jane
talks about the genesis of the poem can be found
here: https://youtu.be/r8QIcYdJPG0.
POPPIES
Jane Weir
www.templarpoetry.com
Three days before Armistice Sunday
and poppies had already been placed
on individual war graves. Before you left,
I pinned one onto your lapel, crimped petals,
spasms of paper red, disrupting a blockade
of yellow bias binding around your blazer.
Sellotape bandaged around my hand,
I rounded up as many white cat hairs
as I could, smoothed down your shirt's
upturned collar, steeled the softening
of my face. I wanted to graze my nose
across the tip of your nose, play at
being Eskimos like we did when
you were little. I resisted the impulse
to run my fingers through the gelled
blackthorns of your hair. All my words
flattened, rolled, turned into felt,
slowly melting. I was brave, as I walked
with you, to the front door, threw
it open, the world overflowing
like a treasure chest. A split second
and you were away, intoxicated.
After you'd gone I went into your bedroom,
released a song bird from its cage.
Later a single dove flew from the pear tree,
and this is where it has led me,
skirting the church yard walls, my stomach busy
making tucks, darts, pleats, hat-less, without
a winter coat or reinforcements of scarf, gloves.
Alongside her poetry writing, Jane is a textiles
designer. The thread of imagery associated with her
close knowledge is reflected in her choice of words
such as ‘bias’, ‘blockade’ and ‘felt’, all of them resonantly
ambiguous. They are developed in the fourth
satanza to communicate the emotional respnse fo a
mother to her son’s imminent departure, her worry
being expressed as the ‘tucks, darts, pleats’ of her
stomach.This poem is one of a triptych, the others
being entitled ‘A Hank of Yellow Wool in a
Landscape’ and ‘The Face’. In response to my asking
if it would be possible to include the pom in The
Sandbag Times, Jane wrote “‘Poppies’ was inspired
by a ramble up to the war memorial in Matlock and
through the very graveyard mentioned in the poem
with my lad as a small boy many years ago. It got
me thinking about Sassoon’s poem, ‘Sick Leave’
when he was hospitalised at Craiglockhartt suffering
from shell shock. He reported seeing men from his
platoon at the foot of his bed asking him what he
doing and why was he not with them.”
SICK LEAVE
When I’m asleep, dreaming and lulled and warm,
They come, the homeless ones, the noiseless dead.
While the dim charging breakers of the storm
Bellow and drone and rumble overhead,
Out of the gloom they gather about my bed.
They whisper to my heart; their thoughts are mine.
“Why are you here with all your watches ended?
From Ypres to Frise we sought you in the line.”
In bitter safety I awake, unfriended;
And while the dawn begins with slashing rain
I think of the Battalion in the mud.
“When are you going out to them again?
Are they not still your brothers through our blood?”
Siegried Sassoon
Siegfried Sassoon formed a famous friendship with
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