Paul

This is immense. The layers. The narrative. The closing. Christ it’s class. 👏👏👏

Sharp, incisive. The romanticism of the open quickly dismantled with truth. Powerful Karen. 🙏

A frightening vision of 2026/27. Powerfully written Paul. 🙏

A fantastic response to the prompt. Fun.

Gary this is heartfelt and powerful with emotion. Great. 👏

Tickets are now live 🫣

Poem: Weighted Silence The air is heavy with silence, the quiet is a roar of denial– there is no war, no marching bands no cheering crowds no reports of fallen soldiers, (tagged and tattooed in advance) no one cries, no one is seen crying, all support, we’re in full support, this operation’s to protect and save— do not say otherwise, wiser to say nothing at all. The air is heavy with silence. That silence is heavy with fear.

Good morning! For #PoemsAbout #DogTags Another tough one! Thank you to @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk #Poetry

Ooooffffttt Merril! Love the emotional charge of this. The last line is knockout. 👏👏👏

I enjoy the repetition in this. Very apt Glenn for the subject 👏👏👏

This is delicate but that winter stanza has the bite of a northerly wind 👏👏👏

Collateral Relative ©Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2025 “No Parachutes!”, Decree the Brass Hats, mindful that pilots all too readily bail out of those Newfangled pyre-caskets, ash-framed and taut with doped linen fabric. In frostbite, sun-scorched high heavens, he sits astride a Dolphin - Mired and bloodied from dogfights with pods of Fokkers above Flanders. Lateral ancestor, collateral relative – Great War Flying Ace with DFC before twenty – his hometown rag credits him with eight kills. Life prospects capped at days, weeks, minutes - He swoons at settling down with Gladys in a cottage near the Solent. Son – Second War Flying Ace with DFC before twenty - Like Robert Gregory, meeting his fate aged thirty-seven, Somewhere among the clouds above Lincolnshire, forty years hence. Navigator on Canberra jet bomber bound for Malta, his Arm broken on exit fails to pull the ripcord. Back in 1919, with Croix de Guerre pinned to his chest by King Albert, Lateral ancestor maladapts to the loss of friends and comrades who Fireball out of the sky before they can even enter combat. Mystery of skull fractured at 1923 mess party. Drunken brawl? Chair, bottle, paperweight smashed over his head? Monumental concussion, contusion tipping him, not into creativity like Roald Dahl, but into Intelligence; into unmapped deserts west of Basra; into three years with the Bedouin; into Searing heat and sandstorms; into flies, revolting food and foul water; Into OBE, Wing Commander and Air Commodore; into Chief Intelligence Officer; into Monumental fuckup in Far East Command. Now Brass Hat, he Transfers his nephew, my grandfather, from Eastcote to the Dutch East Indies. Freshly-minted mathematician, aviation nut, clever young chap, my Grandfather becomes NCO tasked with constructing radar stations on Java. Vital equipment gets relocated to the Middle East. They improvise with aircraft crates and tapped Civilian telephone networks - …

They warn the Brass Hats, who wave all this “newfangled nonsense” aside. As the island is overrun, they give an hour’s notice of the enemy’s approach – all To no avail. Uncle Brass Hat Delivers his nephew - collateral relative - into Japanese captivity: Mosquitos, meagre food, foul water, monsoon rains; Beriberi, cots on beaches or in runway ditches awash with dysentery shit; Forced labour, beatings, killings. Seven months of fortnightly malaria bouts Mark him out as a “goner”, but my grandfather pulls through. Crammed onto two wooden diesel coasters, they are strafed, pounded by Wham! Bam! Thank you, Ma’am! Liberator bombers in the Macassar Strait. Terrified captors give them leave to scrawl POW across bridge and hatches in Paint composed of tapioca flour and water. Liberation. Original cohort whittled away, cut down to a mere fraction. Vegemite habits acquired while Recuperating in Perth Fail to stay the Brimming tides - Fury, Resentment, Mistrust, Optical neuropathy, Arterial stenosis - that Claim him before he turns eighty. I catch him at it once or twice: Curses muttered to himself in Japanese while he Deadheads the roses. ©Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2025 *DFC, Distinguished Flying Cross

🙏 @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk #PoemsAbout #DogTags

#newpoem: ©Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2025

#WarTrauma #FamilyTrauma #ancestry #WBYeats #20Century #snafu #fubar #aviation #prosepoem #vegemite #RoaldDahl

Call me by any name spring sunshine graces your smile birds sing in praise of all the saints as we amble through the market holding hands you call me by any name that means love summer heat warms to our conversation young birds fledge, their nests left behind we run for the bus, not fast enough to catch it you call me by names only we can know autumn comes early, rains close around us the birds will leave for warmer lands as smoke from cosy hearths fills the air you call me in a hushed voice winter is hard, a northerly wind brings snow those who are left search for shelter you are wrapped up against the elements you call me to say goodbye

Maybe a bit off-script for #poemsabout #dogtags but it's what emerged - a quick poem on names and seasons of a relationship. Thanks @alanparrywriter.co.uk & @thebrokenspine.co.uk #poems #poetry

Excellent storytelling with hits of rawness and humour and more. As always your language is expert

I love this sharp piece. Will research this siganaculum further as I like me some history 👏👏👏

Really powerful piece. 👏

Marked   Stamped, we begin.   Fed through waiting links.   We warm ourselves against his skin, and mark the beat beneath.   Mud claims strength. He crouches, chanting our rosary.   Staccato guns punctuate rhythms of march and halt.     The trench is deep,  his breathing shallow. We press against the rifle’s stock, imprinted on his heart.   Night.   White flares rupture the empty sky.   He runs.   We whip against his sweated breast.   Then stillness.   The weight shifts. Breath silenced.   Hands divide us.     One remains,  kept to the chest that lies still.   One torn away, carrying his name out from the smoke.     Soil closes in.   I rest against the ribs,   metal to bone,   unmoving in the dark.     No stone above.  No carved word to honour him.   Only the chain’s last echo,   a name unspoken,   held in the earth.

Such a good prompt this week with remembrance still weighing on my mind.

#Dogtags
@thebrokenspine.co.uk
@alanparrywriter.co.uk
#PoemsAbout
#poetry #poetrycommunity #blueskypoets

The way this opens really hooked me and it gets better as you read it. 👏👏👏

How you so excellently sum it up . A small plate against the drift. 👏👏👏

I also agree this is a bit quirky. Great messages scattered throughout. 👏

DOG TAGS Send them into space, all of the dog tags and toe tags, Trumps’ three Purple Hearts, and the mindset of men who pay dear and trade cheap that the God who abandoned this sorry blue world might see the joylessness of man’s desiring and act as a “signpost up ahead” so benevolent passengers may be forewarned drifting near our debris field on their judicious excursions coming from and returning to, hopefully, better planets smelling of ginger melon balls and mint, where space travel was a glorious culmination, not an escape or an escapade, where they needn’t keep people like me as pets or souvenirs anymore.

I don’t usually post #PoemsAbout @thebrokenspine.co.uk this early, but I’m taking some antihistamines and may sleep through a good portion of the night, or not. Will post a reel for #DogTags in the comments.

Morning @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk - thanks for the #PoemsAbout #Dogtags prompt. I hope this works if you weren’t a fan. Happy Friday!

I loved the show MASH.

I agree the pivot is extraordinary. 🙏

Great write. 👏👏👏

‘Pay dear and trade cheap’ oh my word. A great indictment 👌

I won’t mention Bond though. 😂

Thank you Rachel. Wanted some bite in this one 🙏

Thanks John appreciate that 🙏

One of my favourite war movie actors.

But yes I wanted a ‘current’ poem and hope the message came across 🙏

Thank you Merril, I wanted it to come across that way. 🙏

Couldn’t resist the wordplay ☺️

Thanks Jan, appreciate that 🙏

Thanks Andy glad it comes across that way 👍