I remember my father’s shake of the head
When Thatcher went to war
War solves nothing my father said
He’d seen it all before
All those theatres of World War Two
Iraq and desert sand
El Alamein and Rommel
The Desert Fox command
D-Day then and Normandy
Caen razed to the ground
The bulge they made round Malmedy
That bloody battleground
The final advance into Germany
The round up of the strays
Arrests a guy – it’s Himmler
An ending to amaze
Then in his chair and getting on
He watched the Falkland ships
Set sail for southern oceans
That won’t be fish and chips
And now the shock of Russia
Attacking in Ukraine
You’d think we’d had enough of war
But we do it all again
And once the fighting has started
It’s very hard to stop
Anger rises blood is boiled
We’ll fight till blood’s last drop
We have a duty every one
To utter words of peace
To practice patience every day
So wonders will never cease
Brian Fahy
8 November 2022
Erris Poetry 