Who'll Wash The Dishes

[Ca ne fait rien]

Three thousand knives
along with other silverware
lay strewn across the battlefield
like bodies waiting to be mourned
burnt pots and pans
proud soiled spoils of war
lay to waste in no mans land
where pretty little picture tiles
with scenes of rustic
farm yard life, now spattered
in the culinary aftermath
bear witness
to the casualties
of my creative
cooking urge

For this reader, what you have done here is enhanced the horrors of war and warmongers by coating it with the veneer of the every day kind of domestic trivia. It is brilliant. In the aftermath of battle, it is the things like the knives and forks and the odd child's shoe that define life and death. Actually, the more often I read this poem, the more it gives me goosebumps. 'Gay Paree' was not exactly what most of those farm boys saw, was it. It's up there with the centenary coming up, Billy, and I would not alter a thing in it. If there is anything with rough edges poetically-wise, it only adds to it.

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Or then again, maybe I am reading too much into it ,