London

Blacked out windows,

doors shut tight.

Mothers praying

through the night.

 

Praying that families

come home safe and warm.

Sons and husbands,

weathering the storm.

 

The storm of bullets,

gunfire and shells.

making their lives

hell.

 

Food becoming scarce,

men scarcer.

The only ones left

showing white feathers.

 

Desperate housewives

trying to provide,

for a family of four,

their self aside.

 

Longing for the letters,

accounts of the week.

Dreading the telegrams

telling of the final sleep.

 

Bombed by Zeppelins,

the Germans are here.

“The Hun”, the evil,

we were all told to fear.

 

One week,

the usual postcard arrives.

The next,

the telegram.

 

The small yellow paper,

the stiff formal words

thanking a mother

for her son’s life.