Lost

Gold cherry

By celticman

Sat, 08 Aug 2026
  • 148 reads
10 comments
 

 

When the worst has happened,

 

how do we find our best?

 

When the rest just drifted away—

 

screamshot:

days and nights of false-flag bar fights,

 

keeping life at bay.

 

That’s my way of honouring our dead.

 

Your concern is touching—

 

a bullet-point in our shared history,

 

King and Country, waving the flag,

 

keeping trouble at bay in places

 

we couldn’t pronounce and held no sway.

 

All those angry faces o’er there.

 

Who won the war? Who kept score?

 

Shell-shock, battle fatigue, necrosis—

 

a pick-and-mix of greed and our need

 

to stay above the ground,

 

while a distant bugle plays Taps

 

marking your fall

 

with whatever bits they’ve found.

 

Same silence crowded underground:

 

the honourable dead.

 

But who said?

 

We’re not far away.

 

We fight the same battle every day:

 

booze, drugs, self-mutilation,

 

Marking our disintegration—

 

tattooed scars of honourable integration.

 

Our grief and failure, terminal—

 

if love is not eternal.

Certificate PG
Poem
Spiritual

Comments

Submitted by insertponceyfre... on

hopefully it is

 

Submitted by Makis on

It's clear that war leaves much more than the dead behind! Very poignant poem celtic.

 

Submitted by Turlough on

But a lot of people like war. It makes them money.

It makes my heart and brain bleed.

Turlough

Submitted by celticman on

me too, Turlough. we switch off, mainly. It's too much. But some can't, I guess. The lad that lives a few doors away for one. 

 

Submitted by Frances Macaula... on

A stunning collection of words, Celticman.  

"a pick-and-mix of greed and our need

to stay above the ground,"

So many powerful lines... clever.  

Thank you. 

Soundcloud:  https://soundcloud.com/search?q=FrancesMF

Submitted by Frances Macaula... on

And, congratulations on the Cherries - very well deserved!

Soundcloud:  https://soundcloud.com/search?q=FrancesMF

Submitted by celticman on

thanks Frances, cherries are always good but your kind words are better. 

 

Submitted by airyfairy on

Stark, passionate and beautiful - this is our Monday Pick of the Day.

Picture by Helgi Halldorsson, free to use at Wikimedia Commons: https://tinyurl.com/3zdvb8xy

Submitted by Di_Hard on

Every time I read this, another bit leaps out, like
"silence crowded underground" and
"a pick-and-mix of greed and our need / to stay above the ground"

I am listening to a series about WW1 just now, and your poem resonates so much with that, too.

"keeping trouble at bay in places / we couldn’t pronounce and held no sway. / All those angry faces o’er there. / Who won the war? Who kept score?"

BRILLIANT poem, to be read over and over again, though it's about all wars, it's about one person, too, in the bar fights, struggling to make it all add up. So much compassion

 

Submitted by celticman on

thanks Di, I'm glad you got something from it.