[FOsen]

Thanks, Jerome - I'll try it. I want to stick with 'shell-shorn,' though, both because it looks as if the landscape was shorn of trees and plants and because it's one of the few pieces of license I could shoe-horn into what is a pretty reportorial poem.

Anyway, I think I have what I wanted, but my money's on Roger for this one.

Frank

[Jayne Osborn]

Frank,

I think you have a fine poem here. It's not a 'throwaway' one, as many competition entries are (either topical or very specific) - it's definitely a 'keeper' and deserves to be seen in an anthology, beside Fenton's original photo, which you've captured the esssence of very well, IMO.

Maybe it's worth enquiring whether anyone's planning to produce a new volume of war-related poems?

Meanwhile, it would be great to see it, and Roger's, on the Speccie page