​​Uncle Sam 

The soldiers and folk in Vietnam
Are vainly waiting for their Uncle Sam
To say the word that means so much
For they are slowly losing touch
To become the faceless ones
For all they can hear are the drones
Of planes and bombs and boom of guns
Amid the hovering figures of nuns
As children cry and long for bed
And the sky becomes an angry stormy red
Hurrying along vainly trying
To stifle their dreadful fear of dying
Oh how wicked we have become when innocent babes
Are driven slowly into early graves
While peacemakers drive to their plush
Hotels wining and dining to make us blush
As they laugh and chatter to each other gaily
Forgetting the hundreds who are dying daily
As unthinkingly they all leave
Talk of peace for another fateful eve
So wake up wake up Uncle Sam and play
Santa Claus if only just for a day
For surely this really is a must
To help you sleep the long sleep of the just.
 

by Contributing Poet  Irene Romilly   (1915-1994)   Copyright ©  
VWP 2020     Previously published in Irene's book,  
                       The Camden Town Poet - Poems of War, Protest &  Peace   
                       (Submitted by her daughter,  Mimi Romilly)

Bio:  Irene Romilly's  father, Private Frederick William Romilly, was a 1st WW soldier
(along with his 2 brothers, Charles Llewellyn and Albert Charles) who died in Étaples, France,
6 days before the end of the Great War (1914-18).
He left 4 daughters, including Irene (and another born posthumously, that later died)
who all became orphans when their mother Gertrude died shortly afterwards.
Because of Irene's tragic experiences of both the 1st and 2nd World Wars
(she lived in Kings Cross 1939-1945, which was heavily bombed because of the train stations there)
and the life of hardship and poverty she endured because of it, Irene always hated war,
​and consequently became an ardent anti-war campaigner.