Until the shelling stops in our hearts

After the torches dim, the sirens ring out
from our bed side keepers.
We muster the strength to stand tall,
and shoulder forth with the pressed ranks.
Our fate amongst the morning roll call.

Through the muds of weekdays,
our focus is aimed to the sunset line,
for that holiday bask relief.
But for now we’ll roost
in the battle front town centre,
with a liquor stride and pleasure bound,
paths lit up by the bowing lily heads
of sodium street light flares.

The DNA of a plague,
when the guts of love are magnified.
We have no longing to fall.
We seek those gracious calls to bed,
wishing for embraced escapes,
bottle eyed or sober,
until the shelling stops in our hearts.

For no Portland stone town centre placed,
regarded once a year.
Our sacrifice is never blessed,
by those saintly blooded hands.
We hope to at least,

to keep a peace,
between our lives and others.
Until hushed tone,
that loaded breath,
when the shelling stops
in our hearts.

Chris Hopkins, was born and raised in Neath South Wales, surrounded by machines and mountains, until he moved to Oxford in his early twenties. He currently resides in Canterbury and works for the NHS. Chris, who claims poetry has been "my ladder out of some dark places" has had poems published in Tuck Magazine, the online literary journal 1947, Transcendent Zero Press and Duane's PoeTree. Two of his early e-book pamphlets "Imagination is my Gun" and "Exit From a Moving Car" are available on Amazon. Read other articles by Chris.