This Broken Sonnet

If just one single teardrop here must fall
To drown these feelings formerly denied
And taken with the salt to pass it all
Onto the very rose that we despised

Yet roses are averse to stay in bloom
Whenever subtle winter calls your name
And standing with his hands inside your gown
He’ll find no warmth to feed on, just more pain

But thoughts of pain were never far behind
We’d only propagate this love to win
I’d heard an old cliché that, love was blind
And had to hang a lantern on that sin

Yet sin is just the reason we must hide

From all those broken sonnets strung outside

Remembrance

Now we carry you home nameless soldier
From those red fields you ploughed long ago
And the flowers we gathered to give you
Were all plucked from a blanket of snow

Did you march with the promise of glory?
Through a countryside tainted with shame
Then you climbed on the back of the donkeys
Who refused to remember your name

But the poems you sent they destroyed us
Though we savoured each line for the pain
Then we locked them away from our children
And we never revealed them again

So we built you a tower of honour
Which you climbed with your gun on your back
Then you rolled up the flag of surrender
And prepared for another attack

Now you stand with your face to the heavens
As we stand with our backs to the sea
And your rifle is loaded and ready
Then is handed to someone like me