Showing posts with label Gallipoli100. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gallipoli100. Show all posts
POEMS ON DISPLAY
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| Eileen Earnshaw and a selection of the poetry on display |
Poetry submitted to our Reading the Century project are on display within the Digital War Museum section of Rochdale Central Library at No1 Riverside.
The scene is now set for the live poetry reading event which will take place in Rochdale on Gallipoli Centenary Day, Saturday 25 April 2015. Further information about this event can be found here.
The poetry will be on display for several weeks and new submissions are welcome.
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Stand To
In the Trench
STAND TOO!!
Morning orders, onto the step, guts churning, rifle ready,
steady, pupils mimicking the foraging rats.
STAND TOO!!
Stand close to the slimed, clay wall.
Close to the boy, my other, my brother,
who came here only yesterday, heart whole, cheerful.
Sharing a cake his mother baked, still fragrant in its tin.
CROUCH, LOOK OUT! But he, long knowing the sun as friend,
lifted his head, stopped, dropped, still smiling,
eyes no longer light with boys delight, face obscured by bloodied curtain.
I never knew his name, he was just another soldier.
Blessed night, no light, moonshine, star-shine,
Oh! Infinite darkness, cover me.
Suns probing search, discard me, reject me.
Expunge by brain of birdsong, childsong love song, laughter.
Make me as one with the earth,
as rat, as beetle, as disease ridden fly.
Plunge me into nothingness, Show me how to die.
Did you fly?
There above the moil and muck, the stench of rotting tissue.
DID YOU FLY?
In that last dawn, that opal culmination of your days,
that SECOND when the bullet struck, smashed synapse.
Screwed nerve endings in hypoxic ecstasy. Did you fly?
In that shard of time, that splinter of infinity,
when your brain bled red, and you drowned in blood?
Was there sense of the countenance divine, his rivers, mountains,
his wondrous works.
In that second as your heart burst.
Did you fly?
And did you know him, praise him?
Did you offer our life to the god head?
Did ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’ echo in your soul.
Did you believe in the cause, the sacrifice.
Did you become one with the majesty.
Did you fly?
© Eileen Earnshaw
STAND TOO!!
Morning orders, onto the step, guts churning, rifle ready,
steady, pupils mimicking the foraging rats.
STAND TOO!!
Stand close to the slimed, clay wall.
Close to the boy, my other, my brother,
who came here only yesterday, heart whole, cheerful.
Sharing a cake his mother baked, still fragrant in its tin.
CROUCH, LOOK OUT! But he, long knowing the sun as friend,
lifted his head, stopped, dropped, still smiling,
eyes no longer light with boys delight, face obscured by bloodied curtain.
I never knew his name, he was just another soldier.
Blessed night, no light, moonshine, star-shine,
Oh! Infinite darkness, cover me.
Suns probing search, discard me, reject me.
Expunge by brain of birdsong, childsong love song, laughter.
Make me as one with the earth,
as rat, as beetle, as disease ridden fly.
Plunge me into nothingness, Show me how to die.
Did you fly?
There above the moil and muck, the stench of rotting tissue.
DID YOU FLY?
In that last dawn, that opal culmination of your days,
that SECOND when the bullet struck, smashed synapse.
Screwed nerve endings in hypoxic ecstasy. Did you fly?
In that shard of time, that splinter of infinity,
when your brain bled red, and you drowned in blood?
Was there sense of the countenance divine, his rivers, mountains,
his wondrous works.
In that second as your heart burst.
Did you fly?
And did you know him, praise him?
Did you offer our life to the god head?
Did ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’ echo in your soul.
Did you believe in the cause, the sacrifice.
Did you become one with the majesty.
Did you fly?
© Eileen Earnshaw
Event Gallery
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| Eileen Earnshaw and some of the Reading The Century Gallipoli Centenary Poems on display within the Digital War Museum at Rochdale Central Library |
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| Painting by John Cooke displayed at the Digital War Museum No1 Riverside Rochdale |
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| Part of the 21st Century Viewpoint display by John Cooke at No1 Riverside Rochdale |
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21st Century Viewpoint by John Cooke at No1 Riverside Rochdale |
Thoughts Of An Unknown Soldier
Armed with bravado, holding back a tear,
I battle with my fear,
homeland so far away,
thoughts of home so dear.
The stars are clear, the moon so bright,
how I fear the coming fight in midst of darkest night.
I fear I will die of fright,
no promising end to my plight.
I look around and what do I see,
another page in wars bloody history,
a million soldiers just letters on a page.
I feel an overwhelming sadness.
I feel an overpowering rage.
Will I have the pleasure of another sunrise?
Will I see another day?
Is this just one act, or the ending of the play?
Caught between warring factions,
no way forward, no going back,
no escaping the final gunfire’s flash.
No escaping conflicts bloody scene,
like the hero in my dreams.
Mentally I turn my coat of many colours,
paint a warriors smile upon my face,
summon up my last dregs of courage,
make believe that I am brave.
Valour propels me forward
driven by need to breach the beach,
failure not an option I can face,
much less the thought of cowardly disgrace.
I combat all my dread of pain,
a cacophony of war cries rain,
gunning for the enemy,
shouts of fealty to the state.
Is it sheep I hear baa-ing on my beloved Ortago Trail?
No, just the foe, baying for blood today,
Is that the ripple of Milford Sound I hear on the breeze?
No, behind me, just the sound of sea.
Is that the patter of gentle rain?
“Not sure,” I feel I am insane.
Now, I can hear the sound of silence,
the fading lapping of the sea,
just one of many fallen on Gallipolis’s shore,
amidst men of many nations, an unknown warrior,
deprived of spring, I will age no more.
WHERE HAVE ALL THE SOLDIERS GONE?
LONG TIME PASSING.
WHERE HAVE ALL THE SOLDIERS GONE?
LONG TIME AGO.
GONE TO GRAVE YARDS EVERY ONE.
WHEN WILL THEY EVER LEARN?
WHEN WILL THEY EVER LEARN?
© Catherine Coward
I battle with my fear,
homeland so far away,
thoughts of home so dear.
The stars are clear, the moon so bright,
how I fear the coming fight in midst of darkest night.
I fear I will die of fright,
no promising end to my plight.
I look around and what do I see,
another page in wars bloody history,
a million soldiers just letters on a page.
I feel an overwhelming sadness.
I feel an overpowering rage.
Will I have the pleasure of another sunrise?
Will I see another day?
Is this just one act, or the ending of the play?
Caught between warring factions,
no way forward, no going back,
no escaping the final gunfire’s flash.
No escaping conflicts bloody scene,
like the hero in my dreams.
Mentally I turn my coat of many colours,
paint a warriors smile upon my face,
summon up my last dregs of courage,
make believe that I am brave.
Valour propels me forward
driven by need to breach the beach,
failure not an option I can face,
much less the thought of cowardly disgrace.
I combat all my dread of pain,
a cacophony of war cries rain,
gunning for the enemy,
shouts of fealty to the state.
Is it sheep I hear baa-ing on my beloved Ortago Trail?
No, just the foe, baying for blood today,
Is that the ripple of Milford Sound I hear on the breeze?
No, behind me, just the sound of sea.
Is that the patter of gentle rain?
“Not sure,” I feel I am insane.
Now, I can hear the sound of silence,
the fading lapping of the sea,
just one of many fallen on Gallipolis’s shore,
amidst men of many nations, an unknown warrior,
deprived of spring, I will age no more.
WHERE HAVE ALL THE SOLDIERS GONE?
LONG TIME PASSING.
WHERE HAVE ALL THE SOLDIERS GONE?
LONG TIME AGO.
GONE TO GRAVE YARDS EVERY ONE.
WHEN WILL THEY EVER LEARN?
WHEN WILL THEY EVER LEARN?
© Catherine Coward
It's Hundredth Year Sin' Waterloo, Mam
It's hunderedth year sin' Waterloo, Mam,
When all't regiments stood their ground
An now we're 'ere in Gallipoli, Mam,
Feightin' another round.
Tha'll 'ave read about it in all't papers,
But now thee shall 'ere it from me:
It's a far longer battle nor Waterloo,
An there in't no victory.
Harry an' Tom an' Squintin' Dick,
Are lyin' dead on W beach, Mam,
But Sam's OK and the rest, we pray,
Will fight on as best we can
To carry the war to Constantinople,
An' finish ' war in th' east,
So mi brother Bert in th' Flanders dirt
Can can hold back th' Hun at least.
But I miss owd Harry and Tom an' Dick,
An', Mam, I miss you all at 'ome;
I wish we'd get on wi' our victory parade,
Past Haggia Sophia's dome!
I'll send thee a postcard from Constantinople,
As soon as we feight our way through,
But this feightin's rough an' we aren't enough,
An this sure ain't Waterloo!
© Michael Higgins
When all't regiments stood their ground
An now we're 'ere in Gallipoli, Mam,
Feightin' another round.
Tha'll 'ave read about it in all't papers,
But now thee shall 'ere it from me:
It's a far longer battle nor Waterloo,
An there in't no victory.
Harry an' Tom an' Squintin' Dick,
Are lyin' dead on W beach, Mam,
But Sam's OK and the rest, we pray,
Will fight on as best we can
To carry the war to Constantinople,
An' finish ' war in th' east,
So mi brother Bert in th' Flanders dirt
Can can hold back th' Hun at least.
But I miss owd Harry and Tom an' Dick,
An', Mam, I miss you all at 'ome;
I wish we'd get on wi' our victory parade,
Past Haggia Sophia's dome!
I'll send thee a postcard from Constantinople,
As soon as we feight our way through,
But this feightin's rough an' we aren't enough,
An this sure ain't Waterloo!
© Michael Higgins
Johnny Turk
Johnny Turk is a young Turk
And a fine young man is he,
staring down on Suvla Bay and our dogged infantry,
staring down from Sari Bair on the heights we never took,
for Johnny Turk is a young Turk
with a mean ferocious look.
I see him through binoculars,
I see him in my sleep,
peeping through moustachios and a riflescope too deep,
peeping down from rock and cliff on my riflepit below,
where I grease out particulars
of my Enfield cartridge stow.
I see him high above the smoke
of our intermittent shells
as high explosive lands among us like thunderous funeral bells,
as high explosive rattles our heads and blows our headgear off,
I see that raffish Turkish face
peer into my life and cough.
If we'd have been a bit more bold
we'd have carried Suvla Bay,
but we weren't, and we lost, and we dug delay
into our trenches and lost the chance to meet
my Johnny Turk, as things unfold,
in POW Street.
Johnny Turk is a young Turk,
as he cocks his sniper piece,
staring down with disbelief as we abandon our trench with ease
staring down with disbelief as we board our boats and go
for Johnny Turk is a young Turk
and caused our overthrow.
With a little help from the Ordnance Board
and ill trained new recruits,
undersupply and a tactical lie in the chaos of Turkey Shoots,
undersupply and a tactical lie that trapped us down below,
for Johnny Turk is a young Turk,
and I'm glad he let us go.
© Michael Higgins
And a fine young man is he,
staring down on Suvla Bay and our dogged infantry,
staring down from Sari Bair on the heights we never took,
for Johnny Turk is a young Turk
with a mean ferocious look.
I see him through binoculars,
I see him in my sleep,
peeping through moustachios and a riflescope too deep,
peeping down from rock and cliff on my riflepit below,
where I grease out particulars
of my Enfield cartridge stow.
I see him high above the smoke
of our intermittent shells
as high explosive lands among us like thunderous funeral bells,
as high explosive rattles our heads and blows our headgear off,
I see that raffish Turkish face
peer into my life and cough.
If we'd have been a bit more bold
we'd have carried Suvla Bay,
but we weren't, and we lost, and we dug delay
into our trenches and lost the chance to meet
my Johnny Turk, as things unfold,
in POW Street.
Johnny Turk is a young Turk,
as he cocks his sniper piece,
staring down with disbelief as we abandon our trench with ease
staring down with disbelief as we board our boats and go
for Johnny Turk is a young Turk
and caused our overthrow.
With a little help from the Ordnance Board
and ill trained new recruits,
undersupply and a tactical lie in the chaos of Turkey Shoots,
undersupply and a tactical lie that trapped us down below,
for Johnny Turk is a young Turk,
and I'm glad he let us go.
© Michael Higgins
A Mother's Lament
Left in the wilderness in a foreign land
hearing only voices he does not understand
buried forever on a strangers shore
knowing for certain he’ll be home no more
how can she bear it, he's her beloved son.
Can't sit at his grave and weep,
now his life is done.
Cold comfort, that they’ll meet again,
only when her life’s over,
and her body lays like his,
but hers is this side of Dover.
hearing only voices he does not understand
buried forever on a strangers shore
knowing for certain he’ll be home no more
how can she bear it, he's her beloved son.
Can't sit at his grave and weep,
now his life is done.
Cold comfort, that they’ll meet again,
only when her life’s over,
and her body lays like his,
but hers is this side of Dover.
© Catrina Barrett
To Say What We Say
In a room full of ghosts
we scribble away
each having the freedom
to say what we say
knowing that they died
to keep it that way.
we scribble away
each having the freedom
to say what we say
knowing that they died
to keep it that way.
© Catrina Barrett
Tommy From Home
All around him shells were dropping, when would this hell cease?
What a stench of death, there had to be some purpose,
though what he couldn't contemplate too long.
Men were dropping like flies around him,
it was hard enough carrying his bag, holding the essentials for the battle later,
yet this was it now.
A silent cry in the distance for attention,
no possible chance, this was every man for himself.
If he stopped for a moment, his life would be lost getting help for his comrade.
No, no, again no.
He heard a band of twenty year olds being killed,
by Turkish bayonets in trenches close to the front.
Oh why was he here? Because this was for King and Country, a duty to perform.
Those boys had been sacrificed, he was still fighting.
This war had to be won.
He looked down, water lillies.
He could have been at home, smelling fruit and flowers with mum and dad,
in England with all its goodness, but he was not.
Maybe this muddy, bloody hell couldn't get any wrose.
God no! Rain!
He thought he must have feet for clay,
and was reminded by the old saying, if you stop now... they bury you.
Those were Tommy's last thoughts, before he was hit by a chance shell.
His war had ended. Peace had begun.
© John Leach
What a stench of death, there had to be some purpose,
though what he couldn't contemplate too long.
Men were dropping like flies around him,
it was hard enough carrying his bag, holding the essentials for the battle later,
yet this was it now.
A silent cry in the distance for attention,
no possible chance, this was every man for himself.
If he stopped for a moment, his life would be lost getting help for his comrade.
No, no, again no.
He heard a band of twenty year olds being killed,
by Turkish bayonets in trenches close to the front.
Oh why was he here? Because this was for King and Country, a duty to perform.
Those boys had been sacrificed, he was still fighting.
This war had to be won.
He looked down, water lillies.
He could have been at home, smelling fruit and flowers with mum and dad,
in England with all its goodness, but he was not.
Maybe this muddy, bloody hell couldn't get any wrose.
God no! Rain!
He thought he must have feet for clay,
and was reminded by the old saying, if you stop now... they bury you.
Those were Tommy's last thoughts, before he was hit by a chance shell.
His war had ended. Peace had begun.
© John Leach
No Sense In All These Deaths!
musty grainy desert
basted, baked, cooked
unlike our fowl rations of food
dry bumpy uneven
not a patch on the
jaggy relentless mountainside
not a solid rock
rest or rely on
breathing mould
wet, slippery
breathing roaring
waterfalls
lead you to the sea
of stench
more bodies
insects crawling
digging into
woven flesh
drowning the symbolisation
of life
echo, whispering
mocking, deceiving
shallow and smooth
surface
pulls you in
with false hope
entices your senses
with salt and cleansing
until your too late
bloated, gone,
witnessing its under current
hand of waves
Sirens screaming
fireworks burning
sniffing homing
out Soldiers like
they are deer,
foxes
relentless hunt
blood everywhere
death everywhere
see it, feel it in your veins,
in your throat, in your water
instinctively crawl
blisters all over
trying not to be heard
Winter frost bite
might lose another part of you
piece by piece
hope is shattered
like sound of
speeding ammo
crashing all around
heart is pounding
feeling faint
is it fever
or is it
fight or flight?
no time to think
your on borrowed time
night and day
who knows
every split second counts
your life is no longer your own
it's in some one else's hands
dirty, paper pushing, hands
robot, experiment, Guinea pig
just like everyone who is here
hoping, praying, wishing
all end, except your life
go on, get the hell out
of this hell-bent situation
once and for all
smoke, try and calm you down
deep breaths while you can
herb, drink, anything
to help the pain
search for ages
sun up, sun down
beaten up, fire up
food, fags, fire power
wish you were fired
but no such luck
no place like home
used to moan about
outside toilets.
©Julia McClay 2015
Weaving Words
basted, baked, cooked
unlike our fowl rations of food
dry bumpy uneven
not a patch on the
jaggy relentless mountainside
not a solid rock
rest or rely on
breathing mould
wet, slippery
breathing roaring
waterfalls
lead you to the sea
of stench
more bodies
insects crawling
digging into
woven flesh
drowning the symbolisation
of life
echo, whispering
mocking, deceiving
shallow and smooth
surface
pulls you in
with false hope
entices your senses
with salt and cleansing
until your too late
bloated, gone,
witnessing its under current
hand of waves
Sirens screaming
fireworks burning
sniffing homing
out Soldiers like
they are deer,
foxes
relentless hunt
blood everywhere
death everywhere
see it, feel it in your veins,
in your throat, in your water
instinctively crawl
blisters all over
trying not to be heard
Winter frost bite
might lose another part of you
piece by piece
hope is shattered
like sound of
speeding ammo
crashing all around
heart is pounding
feeling faint
is it fever
or is it
fight or flight?
no time to think
your on borrowed time
night and day
who knows
every split second counts
your life is no longer your own
it's in some one else's hands
dirty, paper pushing, hands
robot, experiment, Guinea pig
just like everyone who is here
hoping, praying, wishing
all end, except your life
go on, get the hell out
of this hell-bent situation
once and for all
smoke, try and calm you down
deep breaths while you can
herb, drink, anything
to help the pain
search for ages
sun up, sun down
beaten up, fire up
food, fags, fire power
wish you were fired
but no such luck
no place like home
used to moan about
outside toilets.
©Julia McClay 2015
Weaving Words
Hellish Haiku
Churchill ran his course
Guinea pigs his fellow man
Celebrate should we?
© Julia MCClay 2015
Langley Writers.
Guinea pigs his fellow man
Celebrate should we?
© Julia MCClay 2015
Langley Writers.
Seeking Sense
It breaks, wakes, makes, sakes, forsakes, takes
screams, shouts, cries and curses, curses and cries, and lies,
lies, it’s all bleeding lies.
Words obscene, screamed and cried, he’s dead,
he’s dead, the silly sod’s bloody died.
Questions and questions and no answers at all
and the sound of an echo bouncing off a wall
and the squelch of mud as a body falls
on top of a body
on top of another
the explosions, implosions, the groan and the fart
the tick, tock, tick last tock of a heart;
hysterical laughter disguising the weeping
and the insane chatter of the man who talks whilst he’s sleeping.
The praying, the preying and the shuffle of card playing
these are the sounds of the senseless slaying,
the whispered goodnight to a faraway daughter.
This is the sound of senseless slaughter
Bullets that whisper through the smog and the smoke
and the hush that heralds slowly the absence of hope
and the cough, and the wheeze and the swallow of phlegm
the song of a choir of terrified men
and the gentle ping, of metal piercing tin
and a helmet that falls to the ground
and the silent ‘o’ that is formed by the mouth
sounds the loudest of all
in this din.
And I spy with my little eye
half a million inventions of a new way to die
a man shot in the back as he’s taking a leak
and I see eye to eye on a dead mate’s cheek.
I spy something beginning with b
B is for blood, not crimson, nor red
but the colour of black that beats from the heart of the dead
and h is for hole right there in the hat
and p is for the poor bugger who couldn’t escape that
and o is for organs, not the Sunday church kind,
but organs like kidneys and intestines and hearts
and minds
and l is for limbs, hanging half off and half on
and h is for hero,
or i is for idiot shouting there’s a war to be won
d is for dead, and I wish to Christ it was me
just me,
lying there, bleeding out to the sea
and eye spy, just little I
something beginning with p
or perhaps with a g for Galipoli
that word that rhymes with almost nothing but unhappily.
Where the sound of a word breaks in mid breath
leaving only a silence to enjoin us in death,
silence and violence strange bed-fellows make
and climax in an orgasm too easily faked
We were asked to explore senses but where is the sense in this?
In imagining bodies in mud, blood and piss?
It just reminds me of how my cowardice ends like ice in my soul
and of how living in peace makes me feel less than whole.
But I wouldn’t have survived life in a trench
assailed by the stench
of sweat and fear,
tasting only the terror on my tongue
of where God had gone
and what Man had become
and if I could not have brushed my mother’s cheek.....
© Norman Warwick
Just Poets
screams, shouts, cries and curses, curses and cries, and lies,
lies, it’s all bleeding lies.
Words obscene, screamed and cried, he’s dead,
he’s dead, the silly sod’s bloody died.
Questions and questions and no answers at all
and the sound of an echo bouncing off a wall
and the squelch of mud as a body falls
on top of a body
on top of another
the explosions, implosions, the groan and the fart
the tick, tock, tick last tock of a heart;
hysterical laughter disguising the weeping
and the insane chatter of the man who talks whilst he’s sleeping.
The praying, the preying and the shuffle of card playing
these are the sounds of the senseless slaying,
the whispered goodnight to a faraway daughter.
This is the sound of senseless slaughter
Bullets that whisper through the smog and the smoke
and the hush that heralds slowly the absence of hope
and the cough, and the wheeze and the swallow of phlegm
the song of a choir of terrified men
and the gentle ping, of metal piercing tin
and a helmet that falls to the ground
and the silent ‘o’ that is formed by the mouth
sounds the loudest of all
in this din.
And I spy with my little eye
half a million inventions of a new way to die
a man shot in the back as he’s taking a leak
and I see eye to eye on a dead mate’s cheek.
I spy something beginning with b
B is for blood, not crimson, nor red
but the colour of black that beats from the heart of the dead
and h is for hole right there in the hat
and p is for the poor bugger who couldn’t escape that
and o is for organs, not the Sunday church kind,
but organs like kidneys and intestines and hearts
and minds
and l is for limbs, hanging half off and half on
and h is for hero,
or i is for idiot shouting there’s a war to be won
d is for dead, and I wish to Christ it was me
just me,
lying there, bleeding out to the sea
and eye spy, just little I
something beginning with p
or perhaps with a g for Galipoli
that word that rhymes with almost nothing but unhappily.
Where the sound of a word breaks in mid breath
leaving only a silence to enjoin us in death,
silence and violence strange bed-fellows make
and climax in an orgasm too easily faked
We were asked to explore senses but where is the sense in this?
In imagining bodies in mud, blood and piss?
It just reminds me of how my cowardice ends like ice in my soul
and of how living in peace makes me feel less than whole.
But I wouldn’t have survived life in a trench
assailed by the stench
of sweat and fear,
tasting only the terror on my tongue
of where God had gone
and what Man had become
and if I could not have brushed my mother’s cheek.....
© Norman Warwick
Just Poets
A Wounded Heart
How can she bear to be with me?
I’m cruel, I’m distant, I’m broken
the shell of the man I was before I went to war
the kiss of her lips. The feel of her skin
I’m numb just a man now devoid of any emotion
waking up thrashing drenched in sweat
Oh God, The cold. The wet. The screams.
the thud of a dead man hits the floor
flashbacks and nightmares
I can’t take it anymore
my mind won’t stop it’s on reload, its on repeat
the crack of a gun and you could be done
death and pain, loss with no gain
my tortured mind makes me blind to the world around
shallow graves, rotting flesh with no shelter from the pain
here and now I’m ashamed to say
I’m ruined from that evil day.
For all the men that survived
For all the men that died
Gallipoli 25/04/1915.
© Samantha Harrington
March 2015.
I’m cruel, I’m distant, I’m broken
the shell of the man I was before I went to war
the kiss of her lips. The feel of her skin
I’m numb just a man now devoid of any emotion
waking up thrashing drenched in sweat
Oh God, The cold. The wet. The screams.
the thud of a dead man hits the floor
flashbacks and nightmares
I can’t take it anymore
my mind won’t stop it’s on reload, its on repeat
the crack of a gun and you could be done
death and pain, loss with no gain
my tortured mind makes me blind to the world around
shallow graves, rotting flesh with no shelter from the pain
here and now I’m ashamed to say
I’m ruined from that evil day.
For all the men that survived
For all the men that died
Gallipoli 25/04/1915.
© Samantha Harrington
March 2015.
Gallipoli
What did it achieve?
All the fighting and the killing,
young men, hardly grown,
leaving their family and homes.
If the guns or bayonets did not kill them,
many froze to death, lost limbs,
others drowned in the floods or torrents,
became diseased from the flies that followed.
Such an ill fated offensive,
so what did it achieve ?
The men left alive had no sense of joy.
Knowing they had lost so many of their boys.
© Freda Robinson
March 2015.
A Refrain For Hope and Reason
I am the moon, I am the sun
Chasing liquid shadows on the run;
I am the wind ruffling autumn leaves
The whispering voice on the gentle breeze.
I am the skies, I am the clouds
Concealing the depth a feeling enshrouds;
I am the promise in a labyrinth of dreams
The whispering voice on the gentle breeze.
I am the valleys, I am the mountains;
Sheltering the dance of eternal fountains;
I am the water in oceans and seas
The whispering voice on the gentle breeze.
I am the song serenading your ears
Whose words fall, as silent, as unheard tears;
I am a forest of evergreen trees
The desolate voice on the timeless breeze.
© Aftab Ahmed 2003
Chasing liquid shadows on the run;
I am the wind ruffling autumn leaves
The whispering voice on the gentle breeze.
I am the skies, I am the clouds
Concealing the depth a feeling enshrouds;
I am the promise in a labyrinth of dreams
The whispering voice on the gentle breeze.
I am the valleys, I am the mountains;
Sheltering the dance of eternal fountains;
I am the water in oceans and seas
The whispering voice on the gentle breeze.
I am the song serenading your ears
Whose words fall, as silent, as unheard tears;
I am a forest of evergreen trees
The desolate voice on the timeless breeze.
© Aftab Ahmed 2003
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