The War Was Over – Free Verse Wordleing – April 18, 2016

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How could I have forgotten
The miles of old whining telegraph wires
That stretched across the land
Sending good news and bad –
Of course that’s all gone now,
Down the worm-hole of time –
We forget what the world was like back then…

I walked down a lane plastered
With red, white and blue flags –
People like ants applauded and threw confetti
I wore my green jeans and matching shoes
(My first fashion collection was
Based upon this memory
— Remember …
The green feathers in Martha’s hair?)
Now we could rest – after the sight
Of the shell-shocked soldiers with their
Loose minds and knife creased pants.
The war was over ...

While we were dining, father spoke of the war.
(That night
I dreamt of Japanese soldiers rattling
Bolted doors and bayonetting wounded soldiers,
The sight roiled my stomach but I couldn’t wake-up
And I ran afraid as the fronds hit my face –
It was something I wanted to forget)
Something I’ll never forget –
He told us that he was in the jungle
Running lost and scared –
And heard the whining of mosquitoes
Like telegraph lines
Back home,
They used to cross the land.

© G.s.k. ‘16
Note: This is a poem about memories … most of the memories aren’t my own actually, but things I remember hearing other people say … except for the dream … I had that dream and it was very vivid, when I was 5 years old, after my father told us about his war experience in the Philippines, where we’d just come to live. What has always intrigued me was the clarity of the dream … I’d never seen Japanese soldiers nor how they were dressed … but I remember seeing them in my dream and remembering their uniforms – which I only saw a few years later in a film.