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

Art

March 2011

Gabriel Orozco: Cosmic Matter and Other Leftovers

Rye Dag Holmboe

Art

March 2011

‘To live,’ writes Walter Benjamin, ‘means to leave traces’. As one might expect, Benjamin’s observation is not without a...

Interview

August 2013

Interview with Marvin Gaye Chetwynd

Ben Eastham

Interview

August 2013

Four or so years ago, at what was then the single Peckham establishment to serve a selection of sandwiches...

poetry

January 2016

Sex-Desert

Galina Rymbu

TR. Joan Brooks

poetry

January 2016

I’m screaming lying alone in this settlement     everything empty only emptiness sex – is a desert  ...

 

Get our newsletter

 

* indicates required