Table of Contents
I – I don’t know who you are sir.
I couldn’t help but notice you.
You wander with no destination,
Lacking any cause or intention.
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You look lost, and sad,
Standing on ground where once you stood.
You look tired, and weary
Your head so solemnly bowed.
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You can see your friends, can’t you?
You can see the smoke, hear the gunfire,
Taste the blood, feel the pain,
Remember the fear, and the loss?
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I don’t know you sir,
I don’t know your story.
What did you lose? Why did you fight?
What happened to you, dear hero?
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For what or whom is it that you wander here?
What are you in search of?
A life that you once had, but gave?
For a cause, lost to time?
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I cannot understand by looking at you,
You appear, and then again are lost.
And then reappear again.
Revealing nothing, retreating into darkness.
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Your life was cut short, and never fulfilled
Your presence is one of great agony
And remorse. You might have lived.
Your time came too soon, and here you are.
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Spending and eternity around your grave,
But what are you doing?
Your body lies lifeless near you,
And over it you stand.
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What are your thoughts, war ghost?
What I wouldn’t give to know…
What is your story, war ghost?
Where is it that you go?
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What uniform is it that you donned?
What colours did you bare?
Soldier, what is your name?
What were you doing there…?
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War ghost…
Behind the Words:
I watched a video of a supposed ghost sighting on the American Civil War battlefield of Gettysburg where an apparition appeared, walking up to and around one of the silent guns in the darkness. I saw the ghost as perptually lost or forlorn – an idea that I found harrowing, and a good inspiration for a sad poem. This was written to the ghost in the immediate wake of seeing that video in 2017.
It’s almost ten years later and I remember the night quite well. It was getting late (and dark), and I went up to my room presumably after dinner because I remember Dad getting ready to go out to the pub and the smell of his deoderant, or aftershave, and I wrote this poem in all of about ten minutes before coming back downstairs excited to read it to my parents who – either because they meant it, or to spare my feelings – both said they really liked it.
It remains one of my personal favourite poems of those that I’ve written. It won’t look like it on this website because I’m not posting them in chronological order (and some of the ones that make me cringe terribly I might not post at all), but this is one of the earlier examples of me breaking the traditional A B A B or A A B B rhyming pattern (at least for most of the poem), which I felt would have stunted this piece if kept in totailty. It wasn’t meant to have the constancy of a drumbeat, but rather to be scattered and searching – I felt that was much more tonally appropriate.
I’m sure better poets than I could rip this to pieces for all the mistakes it has, and as long as it’s done politely feel very free to do so in the comments. But I’m very fond of this one. The subject moved me then and still moves me now, even though in retrosepect of almost ten years, I imagine the video was a fake sighting since I don’t belive in ghosts.
In more posting more recent poetry I have naturally tended to write a fleshed-out ‘behind the words’ section to go with it, sometimes analysing my own work almost line-by-line. I’m not going to retrospectively do that with War Ghost. It’s an old poem now, this context is sufficient, and aside from not wanting to undertake that effort just to justify posting it, and also feeling that the poem is not at all elusive in what it might mean, I also feel as one does with a grave that the most polite way to honour its significance is not to disturb it.
Wishing you fair winds and a following sea,
Ephemeral Dawn.
