Jacqui Bennett Writers Bureau

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SECOND PRIZE IN THE JBWB SPRING 2001 POETRY COMPETITION

Orders

by

Nigel Spriggs

Email: Nigelspriggs@aol.com

 

We are in a valley

The sun is warm

The grass is wet from recent rain

Raindrops drip from the mud-flaps of our truck

We share rationed bread

We talk of women we have had

I read letters written by my mother's mother

Sunlight glints off windows in the village far below

 

Finally lunch is over

We stand up, stretch

I put the letters in my tunic pocket

There is the sound of engines coming up the hill

We exchange glances

No one smiles or talks, we smoke

Trucks cross the field and halt around us

The villagers are herded out and given spades

 

We climb into our truck

The engine starts, the tail-gate drops

The villagers dig until their graves are deep

I sit behind my machine gun and start to shoot

Some of them are running

I wonder why, where can they go?

Bullets run faster than shoeless people

Shoeless people fall down in dark wet mud

 

Before long it is over

They are dead, we watch them covered up

Jews, Gypsies, Lesbians, Gays, mothers, children, husbands

God knows what we have done

 

©2001 Nigel Spriggs

Nigel would love to hear what you think of his poem - email him now

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