100 wars

this ancestral war   this apocalypse war   this bankrupt war

this bastard war        this bickering war        this black war

this blackmail war          this blood war          this boy war

this brimstone war      this burning war    this censored war

this class war           this cliché war           this clinical war

this cold war            this crass war            this cynical war

this damn war            this death war            this desert war

this drug war             this epic war             this family war

this festering war     this feudal war     this flag-wavy war

this flesh war      this flickering war      this forgotten war

this fractious war    this failed war    this friendly-fire war

this fucked up war      this gaming war      this ghost war

this global war            this god war             this grave war

this hate war            this hero war            this hidden war

this hollow war         this holy war         this hopeless war

this hunger war      this industrial war      this jealous war

this just war        this karaoke war        this knee-jerk war

this knife war               this last war               this lost war

this love war           this maniac war           this mass war

this mock war        this neighbour war         this new war

this noble war             this old war             this panic war

this party war          this patriotic war          this pride war

this pretty-mess war     this puerile war     this putrid war

this quota war            this random war            this rap war

this rape war            this ratings war            this ritual war

this royal war            this sacred war            this secret war

this sex war             this silent war             this social war

this strategic war          this tactic war          this terror war

this time war             this tired war             this tit-tat war

this toothless war         this torture war         this toy war

this tribe war     this universal war     this vengeance war

this war on war          this widow war          this word war

this x-rated war       this death war       this youth war

this zeitgeist war        this dark war          this death war

this death war    this war war war war war war war war …

My anti-war poem - 100 wars - which was performed brilliantly

by Craig Hamilton at a War Poetry event at Jersey Arts Centre

last week.

Moles

Under garden and field, through humus and loam, moles tunnel

earth miners nose-diving through truffle brown

snaffling and snouting the ground in swims through soil

carving subterranean highways with shovel feet.

Nosing up towards brilliantine stars they are too blind to see

their neat little heaps punctuate green with soft sifted earth

flagrantly ignoring our boundaries, true ramblers knowing

that under turf all earth is free, moles criss-cross our land

nudging up little piles of disregard.

To be a mole-catcher was once deemed a profession

most worthy, hunting these Jersey ploughmen

with their digger feet and squiffy eyes and velveteen sheen

and even a cream-white breed in some parishes. *

Perhaps the mole-catcher would once have worn a waistcoat

made of their neat little skins, as he followed moles crossways

via their uncharted paths, knowing leaving a few to survive

would protect his trade, becoming wise in their ways.

And perhaps it is true that on moonlit nights

after a pint or two, my father went out to dig a few mounds

to augment their few, and when postcards came

warning the moles had returned, perhaps he regretted

the traps and the poison-blue worms he slipped

into their caves

for he knew that one day he too would be

in l’rouoyaume des taupes, the kingdom of moles **

berthed deep in the berried leafy clod

pressed tight with fusty soil muffling his ears

not hearing their digger feet scratching the ground

nuzzling close, tunnelling free.

* a cream-white form occurred sparingly in several parts of Jersey chiefly in St Lawrence and St Martin...  Frances Le Sueur, A Natural History of Jersey, 1976.

** dans l’rouoyaume des taupes (in the kingdom of moles) is a Jèrriais euphemism for being dead.

This poem was a runner up in the Mslexia Women's Poetry Competition 2013.