Poetry

From The Unreturning

8. Flash Mob

Assembled of a sudden, we watch them go in the name of a hobby or the honour of their school, to the credit of their trade, for the roots of a name, for the streets of their town, for the kudosof the game: Tyneside Irish, London Welsh, Arts & Crafts, West Belfast, Stockbrokers, City, Public Schools, Bicycles, Football, Battersea, Hull, Bankers, Bristol, Bradford, Leeds, Sheffield, Rhondda, Salford Pioneers, shoulder-to-shoulder the Empire League, it’s yeoman-and-yeoman and King’s Own Bowmen for Brave Little Belgium and on into Berlin;the ten-street armies mustered by their masters are here because they’re here, because they’re here because…

11. Fake News

Alternative facts from the mouths of the righteous. 80,000 Russians across from Archangel, snow on their boots and roubles to burn in the station bars south of Leith; a company of zombie deserters alive between the lines; the Agincourt bowmen re-strung for St. George; the Crucified Canadian; those angels at Mons and Tommy as Christ, all looking on while Fritz renders the dead into tallow: roadside calvaries to that which is true. Meantime, the monstered mask profiteer’s guilt as up on the moon sits a bomber from the war we’ve yet to fight. And, in this banqueting hall of the dis-informed, the Führer rocks his sling-backs while comedians feast on hamster.

29. Webbing

Buy it now for two-seven-five, condition as shown in photo, too well-made to be repro, the kosher stuff of a lost patrol. As metaphors got real and euphemism ugly, the Aldershot Design lugged its rough rigging onto the dog-tired shoulders of our line. And, if you’re browsing for archetype, for “how it really was”, then scroll no further than this, one belt; two braces; bayonet frog; pouches for ammo; one haversack; valise with two straps and carriers for the head and helve of an E-tool. This was our hyperlink, a one-piece jacket for the universal soldier: Dai’s Greatcoat, Hotspur’s mail, John Ball’s frayed thread for the fucked-up Grail of Mametz Wood. Epic failure/epic fail.

Martin Malone