War Memorial

Passels of plastic chairs
half filled with empty souls,
where gaps grow yearly
replaced by psalm books,
or council representatives
made to wear poppies,
and annual expressions of sorrow.

Old faces blow through brass and bugle.
Breaths become 'Amazing Grace'.
Hands fold.
Heads bow
and old mouths wobble
at the walls of names which each had a face.
Now they are carved in concrete,
and pallid cenotaphs of wrinkles
remembered by those who sit or stand,
The fallen rise through these men,
Shining for a moment as tears in their eyes
before they fall again.