大象传媒

Through my birthdate, a couple of typical military cockups, and a coincidence or two, I had a cushy war. I was in Dover during the shelling, but I wasn't personally shot at till the war was over, when a Pathan tribesman whom I hadn't joined up to fight tried to kill me.

Some people I'm very fond of went through the thick of it, and so I find it slightly forward to be publishing these records of the boredoms and humiliations of soldiering. Nevertheless, what's a writer for except to write? And since bullshit rather than heroism was the lot most of the time, even the heroes had to go through it.

Many of the items only aspire to the condition of poetry, and some are trivial, but I hope they justify their place in this minor historical narrative which, I'd like to think, carries its own poetic logic and might remind others of the tomfoolery, the comradeship, the cruelty, the fun, and what it was like to be young then.

The poems appear in a collection titled "A Useless Passion" by herbert Lomas published by London Magazine Editions/Enitharmon Press, 1998

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