Monday 23 September 2013

Glory takes Time - a sonnet for Vladimir





Glory takes Time

One opened an Oxo cube tin
and showed me the medals 
and ribbons and papers
and said they were trinkets
and no longer shiny 
and glorious; his old decorations 
they were. And he told me  
again of a war 
and of days in the fog 
and the trenches 
and of some of their boys 
he had shot
(or maybe had not) for the whore 
of ribbons and gongs.


4 comments:

  1. You are such a thoughtful man Gwil. This is such a carefully worked out sonnet and it has a painful message.

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  2. Thanks for the kind comment. I was recently at the Venice Biennale and took some photos of detail in some of the exhibits which appealed to me.

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  3. You lucky thing going to the Venice Biennale. Venice has always been my favourite place. I went back with the farmer when we were first married and it was not to his tast at all (flooded while we were there several times). I wish I hadn't gone back - it never does to go back does it?

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  4. Pat, I'll be coming to Venice as a place to be in a future post - while there I attended a demo and took photos of the protest. You'll see it has changed a great deal.

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