They promised us

when the Wall came down,

when the graffiti sprayed Berlin

and envious eyes stopped eyeing

what could have been, that that

would be the end of it;

there would be no more nightmares

as two suns fought for dominance

over European skies.

 

I believed you, I saluted the Greenham Common women,

I thanked in my mind the leaders

and whilst I knew there would always be war,

for after all Humanity is not humane

and as a species we are just dumb fucks

who just love a good fight,

I never thought, for that brief shining minute

that I would become a burning shadow,

a memory

in a history book

that nobody would read.

 

My middle son turns twenty-one

as you resort to poking each other

again with metal sticks,

my bucket list as a Middle-Aged Man

is far from complete, but how many

twenty-one year olds have even drawn up theirs?

How many even have a pad and pencil in which to take note

that my generation

were complicit in believing the big lie,

you never stopped,

you never will

for there is always another war to win

and the Greenham Common women

now have now

become anecdotes

and footnotes

in the shadow to come.

 

Ian D. Hall 2017