Pause to remember ...

Disappearing With a Tie

He puts a tie on to read his papers.

Checks the knot in his hall mirror and then

does his National Service quick-march

down to the library where he leans over the broadsheet,

elbows of his jacket secured with extra padding.

It’s warmer here in the bucket seats, he might say

should you ask. And there’s company of a sort,

although everyone obeys the rule and no one speaks.

A nod to the familiar is sufficient. And maybe

a twitch of a smile on a good day.

I don’t know, he might say

should you ask what he’s looking for.

But finds himself pulled to the casualties.

The role-call of young lives severed

in the war of I am More Right Than You Are.

I know this, he might say should you ask,

the past is locked into the present,

holding the future to ransom

and the weapons may change

but the blood

slick on a different patch of earth,

stains just the same.

Michael Malone