Never Surrender!”

Never surrender!
And never ever give up!
Life is a struggle!

Nineteen Forty One.
World War Two haunts everywhere.
I am six years old.

The war is raging .
British soldiers guard our soil.
A schoolboy wonders.

Holstered with a gun.
My father in uniform.
He is the police.

Adults beckon all.
Loudspeakers  blast out harshly.
“Put out the lanterns.”

Lights are off again.
We snuggle under our beds.
A “game” we must play.

A Hitler image.
Molded out of wax and clay.
“I made it myself!”

My father scolds me.
Carving Hitler out of clay.
“You should know better!”

Child in innocence.
Childhood voice expressed, suppressed
Child at war with Self.

My eyes in wonder.
And yet he tells me nothing.
My policeman father.

A radio voice heard.
The statesman Winston Churchill’s.
“Never surrender!”

Hidden and not seen.
At home someone is quite sick.
Why is she moaning?

Why is she hiding?
Is it the war that scares her?
Why is she hidden?

Epilepsy’s curse.
The fit strikes her with madness.
A schoolboy shudders.

The war within us.
Questions without answers.
The war everywhere!

Eleven years old.
Nineteen Forty Six the year.
Children are silenced!

The war is over.
Britannia still rules the waves.
King George the monarch!

The years have gone by.
Questions remain unanswered.
No more a schoolboy.

COVID brings all back.
Pandemic with a forethought.
Childhood memories.

Twenty Twenty One.
Grandchildren will remember.
COVID-19 war.

Never surrender!
And never ever give up!
Life is a struggle!