Harlow Writers
the friendly writers' workshop

ROSEMARY PORTER
Born in Banagher, Offaly, Rosemary studied at Southampton College of Education, University College Dublin/Galway and the Cambridge Institute.
She taught in Ireland, London and west Africa, before settling in Harlow where she taught at St Mark's School and Intergrated Support Services.
Rosemary has been a Member of Harlow Writers Workshop for over 10 years, contributing to their bi-annual anthologies. She has also had work published in Irish and British magazines, and has read her poetry at various literary festivals.
Her book 'Erse Echoes' is a collection of poems frequently rooted in Rosemary's deep love for Irish culture and history.
The two poems below refer to the participation of Irishmen in the 1914-18 war and the treatment they received when they returned home to Ireland.
The Tiny World of Fisal
Canvas corner
Of a tiny world
Haunted owl-like eyes
Alert and frightened
Pierce the broken light.
Wanton war-lords
Wage destruction
Fisal christened Francis
Terrified traumatised
Cowers in fear.
Sole survivor
Of a merchant dynasty
A canvas corner
A mountain hideout
A tiny world.
Fisal fans the dying embers
Fells the crumbling dirt
The hard stone
On fragile bone
Haunted eyes
Pierce the broken light.
© 2015
NOBODY WANTED TO KNOW
They came back but nobody wanted to know
No marching bands or bugle blow
Suffering nightmare in silence and fear
unable to share enduring cowards' leer.
They fought for freedom in a foreign land
Their red blood mingling with golden sand
Haunted by carnage and blood curdling sounds
Familiar home was out of bounds.
Nobody wanted to know
Sodden clothes infested dykes
Disease and footrot like walking on spikes
Now living the nightmare in broad daylight
unable to share their trauma and plight.
Prisoners to a darkened past
'Tho freemen now were still outcast
The bloodshed the comrades they couldn't protect
A shrine to their memory they would never erect.
Nobody wanted to know
The men who fought with (Munster) Fusiliers
The Connaught Rangers who shared their fears
Now haunted by horror in their fitful sleep
They would go to their God, their secrets keep.
Fathers were silent mothers cried
brothers Laughed, sisters denied
Cambrai, the Somme and Gallipoli
Just names of places thery would never see
Mick and Pat, Jack and Ker, Davey and Joe
But nobody wanted to know
Nobody wanted to know
© 2014

Painting Shadows is Rosemary's latest (2015)
collection of poetry, flash fiction, and short stories
THE WALKING DEAD
A tribute to the 200,000 Irishmen who fought in the 1914-18 war. Between 35,000 and 50,000 died, many of their graves unknown.
I hear their whispers
I hear their cries
I see their pain
I see their eyes
I touch their hearts
I touch their fears
I feel their sorrows
I feel their tears
The Walking Dead
I speak their tongue
I speak their prayer
I smooth their path
I smooth their hand
I kiss their lips
I kiss their wounds
I warm their feet
I warm their tombs
The Walking Dead
I cover their bodies
I cover their pride
I lay them to rest
On a green hillside
The Dead.
© 2014