Grandad's Silence 1963.

You said nothing 

of the first world war,

although you were there, 

there at the front 

with the big guns, 

knowing of mud and death, 

of shells screaming 

into the damaged sky.  

You sat in your armchair 

by the winter fire 

when we came 

on Sunday visits. 

You seemed clothed 

in the silence by choice. 

You said nothing 

of that war, 

didn't want to give 

the slaughter voice.