Dear America

11/11/2018

 

Dear America,

 

I hope that you are all well and as you wake up this morning you are grateful for being able to open your eyes and be with your loved ones. I also hope the coffee is good, the pancakes soft and the leaves swept from the yard.

 

I’m writing from a little house in West Yorkshire in England. The day is grey overhead and you can just about see the foreboding Pennine Hills. It’s cold too, not the kind of day to go searching for Cathy or Heathcliff. 

 

Today is Armistice Day. The 100th commemoration of the end of the First World War. We wear poppies every year to mark this anniversary, I wonder what you do over there to remember.

 

It was the worst of wars, millions died in the most atrocious circumstances. Led by leaders in self interest who treated young men as cattle to the slaughter. The pain and the sense of anger has become magnified as the  the years go by. This was meant to be the ‘war to end all wars’ but it didn’t, did it? Perhaps wars will never cease. It’s in our DNA to harm.

 

Your President is here at the moment, in Europe. He has tweeted ‘That it is great to be here to celebrate the end of the First World War’. It’s upset a few (well a lot actually) because we do not celebrate the slaughter of the innocent, we commemorate. He does have a difficult time with language, doesn’t he? 

 

Also, your President did not visit a wreath laying ceremony yesterday  afternoon to remember the American fallen because it was raining. He stayed in his hotel room and watched TV instead. It has really angered many here and all over Europe . People think that he has no respect for humanity, for history, for life or death. 

 

The First World War was also famous for its poetry that was written in the trenches. Here’s one for you to read over breakfast.

 

Sodium Songs 

 

Excrement drifting streets

pushed by forty five 

degree winds

and needle rain 

from an icy syringe.

 

The nameless

are encouraged

by the godless.

 

A conflict between

nation, desire and

reason.

 

Oh tattoo of youth!

 

Your journeys to glory

ignite for the last time

in monochrome bedlam.

 

These sodium songs

that cheer bloody

cacophonies.

 

These songs that 

chaperone death knells

and fertilise poppy fields.

 

It’s moving isn’t it? Millions of men died in the pouring rain and your President cannot be bothered to turn up and show respect for them because of a light drizzle falling in France this morning.

 

Test yourselves today, America. Ask yourself is this the man you want to represent you, to lead you? To take you into or deter you from wars, to look after your children? 

 

Mr Trump is despised in Europe and this is reflecting on our love for you, as people of a great nation.

 

Ask yourself  today please.

 

With love

 

The United Kingdom and Europe