When the First World War began, my mother was not yet two years old. When it ended, she was six. My mother shared with me the story of a WWI veteran, a man she called Old Charlie.
Charlie was sent to the trenches which stretched north and east from France. He was a hometown boy from Wheeling in West Virginia, but his heritage was German. His family, like many in this industrial town, were immigrants. My mother grew up in neighborhoods where, in addition to the many Irish (like her cousins), there were Germans and Poles. During the war, as in many US towns, the Germans and the Poles of Wheeling were often ostracized, or worse. But it was an American uniform Charlie wore to battle, and as an American he fought there.
Like many, Charlie returned damaged. We call it PTSD now, but then it was “shell shock.” Charlie had been a quiet lad, a gentle soul, before the war. Afterward, he became the neighborhood’s drunkard. Unlike many alcoholics who lash out at their demons, Charlie would often slip quietly into a stupor murmuring a melody. It was always the same tune, one well-known.
None of the neighborhood children were afraid of him, though many shunned him. Adults who had known him before the war, generally pitied him. He may have been homeless, but my mother might not have known as she was just a child. She told of mornings when she passed Old Charlie slumped in one doorway or another and reeking of alcohol. She remembered clearly the song she heard him singing as she passed. It was familiar to her, though the words he sang were German.
You see, the one memory that persisted for Charlie was of a single night in that war. It has been written about before, made much of and also diminished in the telling. But Charlie was there, and he never forgot that moment when across the battlefield came a song. Above the trenches from where Charlie shivered, he heard a song he had heard each year in his home sung in the language of his parents.
The words Old Charlie sang in his drunkenness with tears running down his face and heard clearly by my mother as she passed him slumped in any handy doorway were “Heilege nacht, stille Nacht….” The song my mother knew as “Silent Night.”
#WorldWar1Memories #PTSD
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Readers who write in response to one of the prompts listed each month in Splintered Glass, may see their work presented here on the last week of that month. Though poems are preferred, short prose work will also be considered for publication.
Guidelines for submission:
SPLINTERS FOR NOVEMBER 2021
A Story of Poppies
Poppies were always golden,
Or so I thought,
And they came in the Spring
When they grew everywhere
Like weeds—
But I was a California girl
And only four years old.
Then one November day
My Gram and my Mom
Brought poppies home
From shopping downtown—
Flimsy paper poppies
Poppies that were red.
No one ever explained
Why the flowers had to be red.
I was told it was tradition
Like putting our flag on the porch
For November 11, Armistice Day.
When I was five
I met the poppy makers
Or sellers or both.
These were usually men
Who were missing
Pieces of themselves:
A hand, an arm,
A leg or two, an eye.
Occasionally there were women, too,
On the corners, mid-block,
All holding flowers to sell.
And everywhere around,
Inside stores,
Along the sidewalk,
On the bus—
A spot of red
Showed on peoples’ clothing:
On a lapel or pocket,
On blouse or jacket,
No matter if the color clashed.
Many years later,
I learned the answer
When I saw the battlefields
Of World War One
And the grave sites there
Where poppies bloomed–
Red poppies,
Everywhere…red poppies.
HOW GOES THE DREAM
The star that took to flight
has left the sky all black
How goes the dream tonight?
When suns burn out and light
is spent and life gone slack
what remains is blight
and loss and bitter lack
How goes the dream tonight?
A useless nightmare rite
pursues by lightless track
the star that took to flight
No telescope can sight
no passionate plea call back
our star that took to flight
How goes the dream tonight?
#Mourning #ElegyPoem
OLD CHARLIE
When the First World War began, my mother was not yet two years old. When it ended, she was six. My mother shared with me the story of a WWI veteran, a man she called Old Charlie.
Charlie was sent to the trenches which stretched north and east from France. He was a hometown boy from Wheeling in West Virginia, but his heritage was German. His family, like many in this industrial town, were immigrants. My mother grew up in neighborhoods where, in addition to the many Irish (like her cousins), there were Germans and Poles. During the war, as in many US towns, the Germans and the Poles of Wheeling were often ostracized, or worse. But it was an American uniform Charlie wore to battle, and as an American he fought there.
Like many, Charlie returned damaged. We call it PTSD now, but then it was “shell shock.” Charlie had been a quiet lad, a gentle soul, before the war. Afterward, he became the neighborhood’s drunkard. Unlike many alcoholics who lash out at their demons, Charlie would often slip quietly into a stupor murmuring a melody. It was always the same tune, one well-known.
None of the neighborhood children were afraid of him, though many shunned him. Adults who had known him before the war, generally pitied him. He may have been homeless, but my mother might not have known as she was just a child. She told of mornings when she passed Old Charlie slumped in one doorway or another and reeking of alcohol. She remembered clearly the song she heard him singing as she passed. It was familiar to her, though the words he sang were German.
You see, the one memory that persisted for Charlie was of a single night in that war. It has been written about before, made much of and also diminished in the telling. But Charlie was there, and he never forgot that moment when across the battlefield came a song. Above the trenches from where Charlie shivered, he heard a song he had heard each year in his home sung in the language of his parents.
The words Old Charlie sang in his drunkenness with tears running down his face and heard clearly by my mother as she passed him slumped in any handy doorway were “Heilege nacht, stille Nacht….” The song my mother knew as “Silent Night.”
#WorldWar1Memories #PTSD
Author’s Notes
GLASS RAIN—the poetry by Margaret Roxby
“HOW GOES THE DREAM” was found among the poet’s papers. It was once sub-titled “The Mourner’s Plight.” It was written after the death of her older brother, Richard.
REFRACTIONS—as short memoir by Kathleen Roxby
“OLD CHARLIE” was written to honor Armistice Day, established following WWI and the author’s memory from her mother for whom Charlie was a neighbor.
LOOKING GLASS—the poetry of Kathleen Roxby
“A STORY OF POPPIES” is a recent poem by the author and included in honor of Armistice Day.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Readers who write in response to one of the prompts listed each month in Splintered Glass, may see their work presented here on the last week of that month. Though poems are preferred, short prose work will also be considered for publication.
Guidelines for submission:
SPLINTERS FOR NOVEMBER 2021
LATE AFTERNOON
Noon’s heat lingers
In the leaves of trees
Radiates from Nature’s hearths
Of sun-baked stone
But already the shadows
Have shifted toward sunset
And the air sighs its reluctance
To greet the night
While the Earth silently
Irrevocably
Rolls forward and beneath
The cooling lunar tide
#EveningPoetry #AutumnPoem
MEDITATION
Grant me,
O, Lord, the grace
to look beyond the dark
to see into Thy world of love
and light