One Hundred Years From Now, poems by Michael J Whelan
Michael J. Whelan is a historian and soldier-poet living in South Dublin, Ireland. He deployed as a United Nations Peacekeeper with the Irish Defence Forces to the conflicts in Lebanon and Kosovo in the 1990s. He holds a Masters Degree in Modern History from NUI Maynooth and is keeper of the Air Corps Military Museum and collector of oral history for the Military Archives of Ireland Oral History Programme. His poems are published Australia, Paris, Mexico, USA, UK, South Africa and Ireland and included in ‘And Agamemnon Dead: An Anthology of Early Twenty First Century Irish Poetry, (Paris 2015) & ‘The Hundred Years War: Modern War Poems’ (Bloodaxe UK) 2014. He was selected for the Poetry Ireland Introductions series and was 2nd Place Winner of the Patrick Kavanagh & 3rd in the Jonathan Swift Awards. He has featured on T.V. and radio and at literary festivals and his debut collection ‘Peacekeeper’ was published in 2016 by Doire Press. He is currently working towards his second collection in 2019. http://www.doirepress.com/writers/m_z/michael_whelan/ www.michaeljwhelan.wordpress.com
[one_half]
One Hundred Years From Now
I was reading lines from a famous poet
killed while fighting in the Great War.
We never met but through his poems I know him,
what he saw and felt a hundred years ago.
He resonates with me, now,
we are connected,
his emotions are mine as I read,
his body – gone, but he exists
and I know his feebleness as I write.
[/one_half]
[one_half_last]
Awaken History’s Dead
The impacting shells of modern wars
always threatens to awaken history’s dead.
If vibrations disturb old battlefield’s bled
would the warrior ghosts recognise the modern cause
as we have claimed their allegiance to ours,
if not – who would be our enemies then?
[/one_half_last]
[one_half]
After the Great War
do not ask what all the sacrifice was for
or ponder on its worth,
the future should fear no vengeance
from the past
for in the years of remembrance
a hundred years hence,
when the last veteran has finally passed
we shall be at war again.
[/one_half]
[one_half_last]
To All The Presidents, All The Kings, All The Generals And Politicians
I have seen the wire
that caught on the uniforms
of unlucky soldiers,
touched the pointed barbs
that pierced their skin
before the bullets
that took them,
stood were the missing lie.
In my pocket
is a poem
that brings me back
like a bridge.
In my pocket
is the blood coloured rust
of the rage of men.
[/one_half_last]
© Michael J Whelan