Finalist: Ballade (Not Ballad) Contest: Elizabeth Ehrlich

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Brighton Palace Ballade

A wounded conscript far from home

dangled, drugged in bloody grief,

woke to missing limb and bone

and gazed around in disbelief—

the jeweled hall and glittering gold-leaf,

a hospital commissioned from a vain

king’s palace for the War Relief.

No other vacant space remained.

Ten decades on, we tourists roam

the seaside town for pleasures brief

and smart, like the Palace, known

for its excess and art. Now our chief

goal is a good spot in which to leave

our car and start our tour before it rains.

We circle, stalk the street like thieves

but not a vacant space remains.

To us it's just a lovely hunk of stone, 

but once, a soldier lay beneath

the ornate frescoes, gilded domes,

with bitterness between his teeth

for this hard mess, though with relief

to be alive. So many tossed in pain

in their brave beds— call it reprieve—

that not a vacant space remained.

The earth is full of dead men. See

his words within a picture frame:

War is like leaves falling off a tree

and not a vacant space remains.

Elizabeth Ehrlich