Passchendaele
No doubt the morale of the German army
was shaken by Passchendaele. It is unlikely
the morale of the British army was much improved.
AJP Taylor
We share the same wet pitch:
its pocks, its hollowed plains
of wretched brown. We are
the two bald men with one
proverbial comb. Last year
we tricked along in inches,
conceding men in their dozens
over each blade of imagined
grass. We lost a Yorkshire pit
village of pink-faced teenagers
in the cause of this old barn –
hundreds more young boys
drowning to snatch the entire farm.
Morale gets spoken of less and less.
Death is simply our way of life
and all of war is mess.
Stephen Giles was born in east Yorkshire and now lives in the east Midlands. He has been shortlisted for several poetry awards including the Virginia Warbey and the Plough, and been runner-up for the Troubadour and Ware Festival prizes.