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

Issue No. 9

Dr Gaz

Jeff Keen

Art

Issue No. 9

Jeff Keen was among the most influential of a pioneering generation of experimental film-makers to emerge from the United...

feature

Issue No. 1

Ninety-Nine, One Hundred

Tess Little

feature

Issue No. 1

Sitting at a British Library desk in July 2006, a reader carefully consulted the fraying pages of A Relation...

Interview

Issue No. 1

Interview with Marina Warner

Elizabeth Dearnley

Interview

Issue No. 1

At the beginning of From the Beast to the Blonde, her study of fairy tales and their tellers, Marina...

 

Get our newsletter

 

* indicates required