Armistice
At last the guns fell silent, to the minute:
Eleventh hour, eleventh day, so on.
They took no doubt some tidy pleasure in it,
The generals, who’d have liked it to go on,
The slaughter. Well, they’ll have their chance again,
And soon enough. They never go away,
Experts in bloodshed; all the deadly din
Of bombs, shells, bullets: these will say their say,
Now that we’ve made them. Paid for them. Act Three,
Like Chekhov’s rifle on the mantelpiece
Hung at the curtain’s rising, somebody
Pulls the inevitable trigger. Peace
A lull, an interlude. It ought to be the norm
But won’t. At least, not on our previous form.