Ice cold in Alex
And I’m back in that garden
on the corner down Nell Lane.
It’s summer, always summer
and there is no lawn, just dust,
a desert with wadis, low hills,
and two armies—yours and mine.
Armed with our Dinky weapons,
assorted knights in bright armour
and all the time in the world
we waged that war again,
the war we’d seen in films,
the war that came from the mouths
of old men who’d lost sons,
the war after the one that ended war.
And it was the most natural thing
in the world for lads to do.
Yesterday it was my turn to win.
Today it is your turn to win.
There will never be a draw.
Oh, this is funny and poignant and sad. The Dinky weapons leading on to ‘old men who’d lost sons’. Powerful.
Ahem.
How would it be, d’you think, without the first two lines and the final three?