share


no surrender

you’ll be the war and I’ll be the war-torn

and I’ll be underground resistance

printing pamphlets on sugar paper

and you’ll be the war

 

and I’ll be the girls back home

and the boys on the front line

and the songs that they sing to be brave

when they’re frightened

 

or

 

I’ll be the war and you’ll be the war-torn.

I’ll be the war and you’ll march against me

with the placards that say MAKE LOVE – NOT YOU

then and I’ll be the war

 

you won’t believe I’m even happening

you’ll duck and cover as I paint the town red

and when I tumble home across the whole horizon blasted

you’ll be ruined


ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR

was born in Canada and raised in South Wales. She now lives and writes in South London. Her poetry has been included in the Canadian anthology The Edges of Time.



READ NEXT

fiction

January 2014

The Black Lake

Hella S. Haasse

TR. Ina Rilke

fiction

January 2014

Oeroeg was my friend. When I think back on my childhood and adolescence, an image of Oeroeg invariably rises...

feature

July 2013

The New Writing

César Aira

TR. Rahul Bery

feature

July 2013

The way I see it, the avant-garde emerged at a point when the professionalisation of artists had consumed itself...

Interview

July 2015

Interview with Sarah Manguso

Catherine Carberry

Interview

July 2015

There’s a certain barometer of a writer’s achievement that urban readers know well: did this book cause me to...

 

Get our newsletter

 

* indicates required