Growing up & London Bombing, two poems by Neil Ramsey

(Belfast, 1940)

She was six when the German
planes dropped their bombs.
She sat under the stairs and
listened, each bomb whistling
overhead till it crashed louder
than she could ever describe.

(London, 2005)

We walked home after the
Bombings. We’d never
seen so many walking over
London Bridge. It took us
four hours and we were
sick of each other by the
end, hungry and thirsty,
we lay down and watched
it on the tele all that night.