Poem for Watching a War

I’m not sure if I should say it but I will anyway, I’m not that keen on Simon Armitage’s poem for Ukraine. I’ve read a few poems like it which don’t hit the mark for me. I think it’s because the poet is not there at war and it feels somehow derived, second hand. Maybe it’s the male perspective but I don’t want to think that.

Anyway what can I write but a poem that reflects my experience of the war in Ukraine? And if my conversations are anything to go by, reflects the feelings of a lot of men and women I know. I make no claims for it. I am not a Poet Laureate.

Poem for Watching a War

In the corner of my living room

the women of Ukraine weep,

a grandfather kneels in the rubble of home,

the dead accumulate,

there is rain in the wind and mud on the floor

ruin leaks from the sofa springs

rises up through soft furnishings, carpets, cushions

Habitat’s latest folklore, the dove of peace

at the window the clouds are lost in the trees

crows nest in the black tops

I cannot watch, listen, read,

there is only so much damage a living room can sustain

only so many voices of the ruined and displaced

I cannot hear them all

I cannot feed them 

I can barely make it to my kitchen

for the children clutching soft toys, for the babushkas

in their scarves, for the newly dug graves

outside the house is wreathed in tanks.

In the lost hours of the night

in my broken bed

I am left to doom scrolling

the bayonet prodding at my neck, at my heart

searching for the small voice of hope.