ANTHEM FOR THE NEW DOOMED YOUTH
(1)
What passing bells for them, who live as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the bass,
Only – in my ear – shouted, drunken, prattle
Only the blank expression on their face.
The crowd, solely veterans, destroys all beginners,
No voice mourns their loss, except for the choirs
The shrill, demented wails of pitch-shifted singers
Just a hole for the stereo – the car is on fire.
Do we need another war, to save them all?
I hear this theory passed around my peers,
Most of whom have double my few years.
The pallor of girls’ brows, slumped by the wall;
Some boys prescribed pills to quench their thirst.
Make sure they’re sent to the trenches first.
(2)
Bent double, they vacate their guts,
In phone booths, in gardens, on pavements. I curse.
As will the old man they make clean it up,
Though I guess, like Owen, he’s seen much worse.
They march asleep. They sing foul songs about
Women and football, violence and beers,
Drunk and fatigued, with their arm looped around
Some girl that I’ve probably fancied for years.
Sex! Sex! And after an ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmet just in time;
And someone yelling out, it’s suddenly morning
And all he remembers is his chat-up line –
Can I buy you a drink, love? Love! That’s a laugh.
These lads will deny it exists, if you ask.
In all of their dreams, in all hoped-for futures
It’s the one thing that they never have.
If through the morning after you too could pace
You’d see the bloke, with fry-up, and a grin,
Working out how he’ll tell all his mates
About the drink – the girl – his latest sin;
If you could feel, with every jolt, the blood
Racing, pounding, in his aching brain,
And still believe in just three days he would
Put himself through this whole trial again,
And he’ll repeat, he will perpetuate –
In the hope it brings him glory,
The old lie: any man who doesn’t drink
Is gay. You know the story.
(3)
If I should lie, would you think less of me?
I don’t want the awful truth revealed,
That I still have some foreign corner – my virginity,
And that I’ve never got so drunk, I keeled
Over, on England’s dust. I’m too aware,
That my youth left me behind. Alone.
A body imperfect – glasses – dodgy hair,
But a mother, pleased her son’s at home.
And think – a heart that’s done no evil yet,
Would be a shock to modern youths, I guess
Who don’t return the smiles that they are given –
I give, and yes! I sometimes get,
Laughter, good friends, gentleness.
My heart’s at peace. I’ve all I want of heaven.
(4)
Over the fields, teenagers go
Between the beer cans, row on row
That mark their place, and in the sky
The gulls, still boldly squawking, fly
Scarce heard amid the laughs below.
But in their hearts, the new youth know
What people gave up, long ago,
That for the grace of god, they’d lie
In foreign fields.
And though they drink, and though they smoke,
They wear the poppies on their coats
They don’t forget all those who died
And, by result – with happy sigh
They finally sleep. And poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
(5)
Someday, I might lie dead
Because I would not embrace
A life which shamed the land
From which I sprung.
Life, they laugh, and say:
Is nothing much to waste.
But I still believe it is,
And I am young.
