Power and Conflict, poem by poem

All 15 poems. What happens, in a line. Then each one in five words.

A traveller describes a broken statue in the desert. The king's boast is still on it. Nothing else is left.

Broken king's statue in sand

Blake walks through London and sees misery on every face: soldiers, chimney sweeps, young mothers.

Blake hears London's chained misery

A boy steals a boat and rows out. A mountain seems to rise and chase him. He is troubled for days.

Mountain terrifies boy in boat

A duke shows a visitor a painting of his dead wife. As he talks, we realise he had her killed.

Duke shows portrait, admits murder

Six hundred cavalrymen are ordered to charge the guns. Someone blundered. They ride anyway.

Six hundred charge the guns

Soldiers wait in the snow. Nothing happens. The cold kills them slowly.

Soldiers freeze; nothing happens

Islanders prepare for a storm. The wind comes. What they fear is a huge nothing.

Islanders brace against nothing

A soldier runs through bullets and, mid-run, wonders why he is there.

Soldier runs, asks why

A soldier shoots a looter and cannot stop seeing him afterwards.

Soldier cannot forget killing

A mother pins a poppy on her son and lets him leave for war.

Mother lets her son go

A photographer develops his war pictures at home. The readers will not care.

Photographer develops pain; readers forget

Paper is thin and lets light through. So are maps, money and people.

Paper, maps, skin: all thin

A woman remembers the city she left as a child. It is always sunlit.

Lost city remembered in sunlight

A man was taught white history at school. He goes looking for his own.

Carving out his own history

A pilot turns back from his suicide mission. His family shuns him for life.

Pilot turns back, loses family