POEMS FOR PAULA
PAST LIVES, PAST LOVES
‘Paula’s your name in this life
‘Chantelle’ in your last
You played the lead in both of them
With all the world the cast
‘Gregory’ was my chosen name
An English boy was I
Sent to France to fight the war
I dropped from out the sky
I met my ‘Chantelle’ in the woods
We touched and fell in love
A few short months we were as one
My ‘Mamouselle’, my dove
The ‘Germans’ took your Country
Swept through it like the plague
In Villages and in Townships
French faces looking vague
Torture and pure slavery
You suffered at their hands
Then you, a fighting Spirit
Decide to make a stand
You join ‘The French Resistance’
And move up to the hills
At the tender age of twenty-one
You’re honing fighting skills
Your job, to meet us agents
Our parachutes to hide
Guard us with your ‘Sten- Guns’
Fighting by our side
We ran the ‘Nazi’ Gauntlet
Through roadblocks we would blaze
They called us ‘The Untouchables’
The Germans we’d erase
Then under torture someone broke
An ambush they did lay
Surrounded by the ‘SS Troops’
As night turned into day
The bullets flying round our heads
Me wounded, then escaped
I left you to your Destiny
You captured, Tortured, Raped
I never saw your face again
The last I heard, you’d gone
On transports into Germany
Frightened and alone
No word of you for many Months
Missing, believed dead
Then ‘Belsen’ liberated
So many, starved and bled
Your name was on the records
Of ‘Prisoners’ in the camp
I flew across to find you
A place so dead and damp
I searched amongst the broken Women
Thousands wandered there
Then found someone who’d known you
My ‘Chantelle’ held so dear
Then came the news I feared so much
She’d seen you ‘shot-at-dawn’
To hide the Ghastly evidence
Killed by those ‘Devil’s Spawn’
To England I returned that day
To live my life without you
Deepest sadness in my heart
The bravest Girl I knew
I lived until a ‘Ripe old age’
But never did forget
The Girl I fell in love with
Her death my ‘big regret’
But now onto another life
I’ve met my girl again
Spirits drawn together
‘cause ‘Soul-Mates’ never wane
Of lives we have so many
I’ve spent them all with you
We play our parts eternally
For I know ‘I Love You’
THE HIDDEN WAR
The operative lay watching
The dew of early Dawn
The smell of farmhouse cattle
Alone and so forlorn
Three days in this position
A hide just up the hill
Waiting for his target
So patient and so still
Just listening and watching
For goings to and fro
Peeing in his bottle
So as not to mark the snow
“ The Emerald Isle “ they call it
Not emerald now, just white
A stark bare Lunar landscape
Revealed by first full light
A light within the window
An open door aglow
A warmth spills out into the yard
The heat he’d never know
A man framed in the doorway
A dog pushed out to freeze
It lifts its head, alerted
Sniffing in the breeze
It looks right at me, can it see ?
It starts to walk toward me
The doorway is now empty
Now just the dog and me
The handler taught me well
In practise and in theory
" Just curl up in a ball
And act like you’re a fairy "
Time to put it to the test
Show that I’m no threat
I tuck my head in, close my eyes
My face all damp with sweat
The dog it comes and sniffs me
It cocks its hairy limb
And empties out its bladder
No threat I was to him
God bless that old instructor
Way back in seventy-eight
“ Let dogs become your master,
Just let them dominate "
Satisfied, the dog walks off
Toward the farmhouse door
Gliding through the snowflakes
Paw prints on the floor
“ Abort ! Abort ! “ rings in my ear
An earpiece oh so small
The job’s called off, another waste
Me freezing near the wall
Three days wasted, cancelled out
Another time perhaps
The target was just lucky
So near his final gasp
Tomorrow to another task
Maybe on, or off
But this is what I’m paid for
I shouldn’t really scoff
Death means nothing to me now
The targets know the danger
Perhaps he’ll die tomorrow
Stalked by one more stranger
Back to barracks now I go
To drink my fill of Whisky
Might be time to pack this in
Do something not so risky
Deep down I know that I’d be back
The danger is a drug
I’d crave the lonely blood rush
The Adrenalin I’d hug
Tonight I’ll drown my sorrows
I’ll have a little moan
‘cause I know I’ll be back out there
My job, my life, my home
THE AFTERMATH
My Wife she’ll never realize
Just what I have been through
For what I did endure
For what I’ve had to do
Now I’m back in civvies street
The fears should drift away
But simple things that happen
Bring instincts back to play
Walking past an alley
An itching in my feet
Thoughts of meetings long ago
Another secret meet
Sitting in a public House
A normal thing to do
A fear of being trapped there
Known only to a few
A car ride with the kids
Is all that I desire
A back-fire in the distance
Another gun for hire ?
I meet a total stranger
In conversation mode
They do not understand me
I talk to them in code
On Guy-Fawkes night it’s fireworks
Bang-Bang, into the night
Brings back thoughts of Ireland
It fills my heart with fright
Sometimes my hands tremble
When opening a letter
My friend that lost a hand
He should’ve known better
In crowds I’m claustrophobic
From riots long ago
And crowded pubs I used to love
No longer I will go
My instinct was survival
Each job I had to do
It’s hard to break the habit
And start your life anew
So maybe if you see me
Alert, and so aware
You’ll understand the way it was
Working over there
Forgive me if I’m edgy
And hug you when we meet
I’m frisking you for weapons
As we stand there in the street
How many years I’ll be like this
No-one really knows
It’s all about survival
Hitting highs and lows
The aftershock affects us all
In many different ways
I keep mine locked inside myself
Through nights and longer days
Until they find a cure
I’ll wander throughout life
Helped along by no-one
Except my caring Wife
She’ll stand along beside me
Not ask what I’ve been through
She’ll never understand me
But there again, Do you ?
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