Sunday Poetry - Virginia Graham

Another very funny Home Front poem, Let's change the subject, about the new preoccupations of a woman who is suddenly more concerned with missing teacups than Noel Coward.

My thoughts are centred now on strange concerns.
No longer do I find my spirit yearns
To talk of theatres, or art, or books,
Or love affairs, or other people's cooks.
Dead as the dust of ancient dreams they lie,
And cannot comfort me, or edify.

But should you speak to me of bones, or tins,
Or swill for pigs, or sanitary bins,
My heart will leap to yours and in my eyes
The lust for aluminium will rise.
Ah me! A year ago I talked of Rome,
And Beatrice Lillie and the Hippodrome,

And roses and the Rhine and fruited trees
As yet unplundered by evacuees.
My conversation burgeoned forth and flowered
From Bach to Matthew Smith and Noel Coward;
I did not seek a restless bed afraid
I had forgotten to inform Miss Wade

That through some misdemeanor unforeseen
Some forty cups were gone from the canteen.
And now it seems, whatever may befall,
My life, my soul, my heart, my hands, my all
Are linked with sausage-rolls and wool and gauze,
Bound with old saucepans to the common cause.