Pimento Poets: VE poems by Shirley Bell.

In conjunction with the Poetry at Teatime readings on the 31st May, 2015.


VE Poetry by Shirley Bell


Dancing in the Forties

And here you are, walking away from the war you always said
had stolen your youth. Cowering in the pantry cellar
while bombs lit up the gasometer in a giant candle and houses
turned to dust and spars of wood like spillikins.
You talked about the soldier that you dumped
and that his mother said how cruel "you girls" could be.
It's hard to picture you, soldering parts of planes, and flirting
with my dad who wasn't sent away to fight, like Tony, in the sand.
And seventy years have leaked away, like them.
Today VE Day commemorations flood the television,
with memories and my sister and I are waiting for yours
to pour out too. But you remember nothing.
The past has all been painted out with the pastel wash
of the walls in your nursing home. Yet you loved to dance
I see you amongst the crowds, all twirling in circles and
throwing their sorrows in the air like military caps.
And somewhere perhaps a band's still playing in your head,
And somewhere you're still dancing.

English: Bluebell wood (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Thinking about VE Day in a bluebell wood in May


This, it's said, is the County's finest bluebell wood.
Their blue smoke fills the spaces in the trees and rises
up, through the broken litter of the coppicing that cycles
every fourteen years. Blue on blue on blue.
And the ghostly girls are gathering the flowers that are
dying in their arms. They droop their sorrowful heads
and garland their white brows for the ones who won't come
back. They died as they were plucked. Blue on blue on blue.
The celebrations are happening somewhere else. People
are cheering and kicking up their heels. They lie in fountains
and perch on lampposts like ungainly birds. While blue
on blue on blue, those girls are gathering the bouquets of the dead.




Copyright by Shirley Bell