The Soldier's Song

by

Hay Machine

An army officer in Dublin in nineteen sixty two
earning extra mulah square-bashing school children
generally well-disposed and clean-trimmed in white
speaks candidly of the merits of hygiene and sanitation

When it rained an empty corrugated barn was opened-up
within on concrete floor the nine-year-olds were regimented
all in equilibrium until the commandant singled one child out
sentenced to run around the barn in punishment

The child whose soul had children too
ran with rattlingstick and would not stop
clambering beating a drum-rattling clankity clank clank
and would not stop despite the soldier's cries

A trooper dispatched to intercept the runaway
eventually brings the mortifying siege to a close
and the soldier says to think that butter would not melt
the child statuesque the officer's defeat and rout complete

NEXT?
Why don't you look at On reading poems of Sara Teasdale
by: Francis Duggan
from: Wonthaggi, Victoria, Australia

To visit all of Hay Machine's poems, click HERE

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