�Jack�

A Poem by Steven Pottle

I’ve been to the very heart of darkness
Protecting foreign sand from an invisible heat
The constant shatter of bullets that crackle through the air
Or the dreaded calm heavy on the ground
Through dried fields of dead poppies
The wrecked remains of village foundations
While in the distance a helicopter circles over the enemy ahead
Location not known anymore…

Tried my best to direct to be brave
Find any wall as a barricade
The daily near misses
Lost some good friends to actual hits
My original gang are no more
The lorry was destroyed by a random local
Tried to keep mates alive through this sudden fire
Didn’t have time to say a proper goodbye
No more nights of sleeping…wake up screaming
So what do I do now?

Returned to my home country
To nothing but boredom, drink and cocaine
How can I relate to EastEnders and millionaire footballers after all I have seen?
How do I feel about seeing my family knowing full well that some never will?
A month ago I was leading the frontline
Now all is boring here on the front desk
Sitting, signing in and out visitors everyday
What’s left for me to do but to stare out the window and look down the thousand yards ahead
Who’d want to sit and listen to how I saved lives or the nightmare of no more ammunition when there’s Posh and Becks gossip to be heard…

They let you break from the rifle noise around you
And all you are left with is the stifle silence of this town
But the sound of bombs still explode in my head every night…
So what do I do now?

© 2008 Steven Pottle

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R J Askew

Bloody hell! Where did this come from? I know 2 Para just came back from Afghanistan a few days ago, minus about 13 dead. I read in the papers that their casualty rate was as bad as some of the WW2 battles and that some of them were fighting for days on end, hand to hand often, in terrible, terrible heat. The stories in the papers tell us all this, but they seldom tell the story of how an individual squaddie, say 19 years young, who has done and seen things we would rather not... The papers seldom tell us how he feels a month on, back home. But your poem does the trick. So much of our daily routing, including the soothing familiarity of TV and banal stories about rich celebs, must seem odd. Great write.