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The Cowardice of Francis Evans (Free verse) by Caducus
I watched the frost cry for sunrise
Jewelling the swords of soil
dawn gave birth to death
and a choir of corvid's rejoiced
on steel giants by granite platoon's.
Dawn dances in its white gown
On empty graves dressed in nettles
The wind has come to moan
The sun has rose to fall
And like the crown of winters queen
All that lives
is all that's green.
My great uncle sleeps here
Shot for cowardice in 1917
He held his friends cranium
Then held his friend
Took his wedding ring for safekeeping
And hitched a ride to Esbjerg.
He left Esbjerg a soldier of the King
Arrived in Harwich a traitor
He lived to complete his vow
And arrived at Ethel's a man.
"William told me to tell you Goodbye"
and gave her a pressed thistle,
Ethel remarried and had twelve grandchildren
My Uncle was captured on his 20th year
Tied to a plinth with a blindfold
Singing "Abide with me"
Before he was shot by six children.
Every epitaph tells a story
And my Uncle so loved the dawn
His name was Francis Evans
The fiancé of Margaret
The Father of her miscarriage
And coward revoked 80 years later
by a fat mayor in Warwick.
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