BLACK HUMOR.
Your brave, unpretentious, British Tommy,
Found much that was really quite serious,
Funny
He joked about rats, and the fleas and the lice,
And other less pleasant trench-dwelling wildlife
Which was nice.
He joked about things like the prospect of dying
And in tanks and in planes, the real prospect of frying
He joked about Kaiser Bill's moustache
He joked about how long the war would last
He joked about desperate situations
About everyday life, and the fate of nations
Some of his humour was dark and grim
Some of the punchlines a trifle thin
He was racist and sexist
And the salt of the earth
Vulgar, obscene and sometimes much worse
He quite often crudely
And inevitably - rudely
Expressed his most basic emotions
In verse
But what sets Tommy apart
What defines his fine art
Is that although he poked sharp and irreverent fun
At everything and everyone
Including his officers, and not forgetting the Hun
(Who've been neither renowned for their fine sense of fun)
The butt of most of his jokes
Were the ordinary blokes
Of which he was
Most certainly one.
© nigel hallworth 2014