Sunday WW1 Remembered..

Teresa Hooley 

1888- 1973

A War Film

I saw,

With a catch of breath and the heart’s uplifting,

Sorrow and pride,

The ‘week’s great draw’-

The Mon Retreat;

The ‘Old Contemptibles’ who fought, and died,

The horror, the anguish and the glory.

As in a dream,

Still hearing machine-guns rattle and shells scream,

I came out into the street.

When the day was done,

My little son

Wondered at bath-time why I kissed him som

Naked upon my knee

How could he know

The sudden terror that assaulted me?….

The body I had borne

Nine moons beneath my heart,

A part of me…..

If, someday

It should be taken away 

To War. Tortured, Torn. 

Slain.

Rotting in o Man’s Land, out in the rain –

My little son….

How should he know

Why I kissed and kissed and kissed him, crooning his name?

He though that I was daft.

He thought it was a game,

And laughed and laughed.

Teresa Hooley is a relatively unknown war poet, mostly recognised for her war poem, A War Film, which is thought to have been written after she saw a documentary type film, entiltled, Mons, in 1926. This poem was included in her 1927 published work Songs for all Seasons. 

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