Within the fog of did you see? <br />An old woman, made up to the nines <br />Can be seen in the corner of the non-believers eye <br />Purse in hand and a glass of wine <br />Waiting for a lover who never comes <br /> <br />Just shadows on the wall <br />Whispering names, through <br />Spiders silk, the inheritors <br />Of this forgotten, debutants ball <br /> <br />While Portraits glare at vacant laughter <br />An echoed waltz swirls <br />The embrace of loves decay, <br />Images now jailed within the Crystal shards <br />Of a fallen chandelier <br /> <br />A tear of Woman wears mourning face well, <br />This vigil Mask hiding mortality lost <br />Now broken and marking time, <br /> <br />Love lies lost in the barbed wire of war <br />Fallen stars to shine no more <br />Their Remembrance merging into darkness <br />Behind a cloudless unforgiving sky <br /> <br />Alone is the corpse in cratered field <br />Covered by poppies blood <br />Walked on by ghosts to come <br /> <br />Another Whispered soul is roaming <br />The guns have left their post <br />And Peace is just an illusion <br />For yet another Flanders ghost <br /> <br />This cruel winter’s night <br />The withered rose has lost its fragrance <br />The champagne has all gone flat <br />And love calls without an answer <br />For silence is the memory <br />And it is we <br />Who walk hand in hand <br />With our ghosts of War?<br /><br />Steven Cooke<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/ghosts-of-war/
