I have been 

looking 

at ghosts

So young in that photograph

cropped hair, my jug ears

with some fixed smiles, 

some forced leers.

I remember every face,

every single name;

our first few weeks playing 

that barmy army game.

A few months later,

that cameraderie gone,

graded, selected, posted,

everyone of us moved on.

Most of them I was never

to see or hear of again,

but we shared that experience 

of going from boys to men.

How many are alive,

how many are dead,

how many suffer from 

 phantoms in the head.

How many are being hunted

for, what at the time

was life preserving duty but

is now considered a crime.
 

We were politicans pawn, 

at the end of the day

to be used and abused

discarded, thrown away

until with the turning

of the politcal clock

 become sacrificial offerings 

to be pilloried in the dock.

Did we give our youth to be

victims approaching old age

for political expediency on 

the changing world’s stage.

The armchair warrior

with his legal degree

is making rich pickings on 

Veterans like me.

As for the public,

they dont want to know,

Its all in the past, 

far too long ago.

I’ll put that old photograph

to the back of the drawer;

the idealist that was me

doesn’t exist anymore. 

No more 

looking

at ghosts.