Thread: War Poetry....

I still remember this one:-


Still falls the rain....

The Raids, 1940. Night and Dawn.

Still falls the Rain---
Dark as the world of man, black as our loss---
Blind as the nineteen hundred and forty nails
Upon the Cross.

Still falls the Rain
With a sound like the pulse of the heart that is changed to the hammer-beat
In the Potter's Field, and the sound of the impious feet
On the Tomb:

Still falls the Rain

In the Field of Blood where the small hopes breed and the human brain
Nurtures its greed, that worm with the brow of Cain.

Still falls the Rain
At the feet of the Starved Man hung upon the Cross.
Christ that each day, each night, nails there, have mercy on us---
On Dives and on Lazarus:
Under the Rain the sore and the gold are as one.

Still falls the Rain---
Still falls the Blood from the Starved Man's wounded Side:
He bears in His Heart all wounds,---those of the light that died,
The last faint spark
In the self-murdered heart, the wounds of the sad uncomprehending dark,
The wounds of the baited bear---
The blind and weeping bear whom the keepers beat
On his helpless flesh... the tears of the hunted hare.

Still falls the Rain---
Then--- O Ile leape up to my God: who pulles me doune---
See, see where Christ's blood streames in the firmament:
It flows from the Brow we nailed upon the tree

Deep to the dying, to the thirsting heart
That holds the fires of the world,---dark-smirched with pain
As Caesar's laurel crown.

Then sounds the voice of One who like the heart of man
Was once a child who among beasts has lain---
"Still do I love, still shed my innocent light, my Blood, for thee."

-- Edith Sitwell

Isn't it srange here I see, winning all for humanity.
My blood is spilled before the grave, before my time this earth to save.
They watch me die they do not call, mum I love you catch my fall.

Before my time mum tell them all, I cannot leave please catch my fall.
bring me home think of me, save my life, set me free.
I did not mean to take his life the trigger pulled fear with strife.

Don't blame me for what I do, look at them look at you.
Can you see, do you know, my precious mum loves me so.
I will stand the toughest here.
Catch me mum from all this fear.

Darkness I pray don't free my soul, god let me stay.
they wont hear me mum tell them all, save me mum catch my fall.
those other men they must all die, tell me mum tell me why.

They say that they would kill us all, save me mum catch my fall.
they tell me kill, kill, kill, kill.
but only that still makes me ill.

I don't know them they run and hide bullets storm fire side.
let me go oh grip of fate. Burn my soul and state my fate.
But tell me mum why I must die. did they tell us all a lie.

Or will the one who speaks the truth be kept away from trust and truth.
So here I lay fck this war, I love you mum catch my fall.
I think I will die I don't know why I feel it deep inside.
so when my body is empty again, how long will their pride survive.

I cannot fight -the darkness calls, I love you mum catch my fall.

a poem written by
Andy Gregory.

The Alcoholics Curse

At first I was afraid, I was petrified.
By the f**king ugly slapper sleeping by my side.
I would have drunk a little less, I would have tried to keep my head,
If I'd known for just one second, you'd assault me in your bed.

I tried to go, walk out the door.
But you've been sitting on my legs and I can't feel them anymore.
And now you're sitting on my face, my nose has vanished - not a trace.
I hope that dark patch on your knickers is the shadow of my face

I have to go, I've got to leave.
Before your fat and naked body makes me double up and heave.
Only hope that no one saw, me walking home with such a one.
God the things that you get up to when you're drunk and having fun

I can't believe, I'm lying here.
It's all because I drank that evil shit, that we call beer.
You can Sod your bleary eyes, God I must have been half blind,
To mistake that Zepplin arse, for a sexy young behind.

Please let me go, I'm getting scared.
There's nothing I can do to stop those ugly breasts from being bared.
I think that I must have been mad, can’t think what I must have seen,
With tits that look like onion bags, with a face that looks obscene.

It's time to go, run out the door.
She's started hinting that she wants me on her kitchen lino floor.
I think there can’t be much that’s worse, than the alcoholics curse,
Just can’t hold myself together for another f**king verse!

[align=center]“Here dead lie we because we did not choose
To live and shame the land from which we sprung.
Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose;
But young men think it is, and we were young.�[/align]

Short quatrain by Alfred Housman, 1859–1936, English poet and scholar, and part of the inscription on the memorial plaque erected in the old Naval Cemetery on the island of Vis, Yugoslavia in 1944. From the beginning of ’44, the island became the base for SOE’s Force 133 involving 2 Special Service (Commando) Brigade on an increasing basis.

The cemetery is not a CWGC cemetery and was reported as continuing to be normally locked in 2005. During post WWII developments in Yugoslavia, British dead were transferred to the CWGC Belgrade War Cemetery which became an agreed grave consolidation point for much of the region.

No.9

If I may add my h'worth.....!

The Dug-out

Why do you lie with your legs ungainly huddled,
And one arm bent across your sullen, cold,
Exhausted face? It hurts my heart to watch you,
Deep-shadow'd from the candle's guttering gold;
And you wonder why I shake you by the shoulder;
Drowsy, you mumble and sigh and turn your head....
You are too young to fall asleep forever;
And when you sleep you remind me of the dead.

Siegfried Sassoon


Common Form

If any question why we died,
tell them, because our fathers lied.

Rudyard Kipling

Originally Posted by Deleted_User_692

Song lyrics by Eric Boggle (to hear it sung go to http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=U&sta..._th.htm&e=7415)

?

I cant get to that link anymore anyone know where i can hear this sung?

There’s a sung recording at http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-...ther/audio.htm which will hopefully work.

Try clicking this 'And the band played Waltzing Matilda'

No.9

A couple of poems by Tony McNally, ex RA, Falklands and NI veteran.

War creates Whores

My wife doesn't love me anymore
But she lied often enough
She's had a go at happy families
My she's had it rough
She has lots of family and friends
I have nobody
Love is a bad thing we all crave
I'll blame the war.
War creates whores.
Those bastard foreign shores.


Human Waste

A murder of crows lands by the landfill site
I know the meaning of life
Smiling I feel slightly foolish
"What’s your problem?" I giggle to a crow
Energised beyond belief
Adrenaline surge
The 9mm Browning feels cold to touch
Staring at the hand I wonder if it knows how to use it
The knuckles are hairy
White mark totally gone from the wedding finger
I’m now in love with something beyond the boundaries of this world
Don’t f_uck with the safety you idiot
Ha Ha Ha
Keep the weapon pointed down the range
Or inside your mouth
One of the crows looks my way
Can he see my gun?
Do crows ever commit suicide?
You're all collectively repulsive to me
I am part of the bacteria of human filth
But I’m happy truly happy for the first time in my life.


PTSD

I'm happy and sad
Compassionate and bad
Can't sleep at night
Can't do anything right
I wanna be alone
But not on my own
I'm in love but I hate
I'm a burden on the state
I'm possessed by the war
I killed what for?
I see shrinks
I see docs
Remember my arctic socks
I'm disloyal cause I'm ill
Is it right to kill?
I can hide in a crowd
My face a grey shroud
I cry for no reason
My country shouts treason
All the pills and the booze
Make bad memories ooze
I was 19 in June
Under a bright crystal moon
I died that day
But I'm still here to say
For the brave and the free.
My award - PTSD.

This is one of my favorite poems that might find an audience here...it's from the Spanish Civil War.

English translation first, then the original Spanish verses.

* * *


You come from very far away.. But this distance,
What is it for your blood which sings without borders?
Necessary death names you each day,
no matter in which cities, fields, or highways.

From this country, from the other, from the large one, from the small one,
from the country to which the map barely gives its faded color,
with the same roots, sharing the same dream,
so simply anonymous and speaking out you have come.

You do not even know the color of the wall
that your insurmountable commitment fortifies
You defend the earth that buries you, secure
in a shoot out with death, dressed for battle.

Stay; this is how the trees, the plains,
and the smallest particles of light would want it - reviving
a single feeling that the sea tosses forth: Brothers!
Madrid, with your name, shines with greatness.

Rafael Alberti (trans. by V Waddick)



Venis desde muy lejos mas esta lejania
que es para vuestra sangre que canta sin fronteras?
La necesaria muerte os nombra cada dia
no importa en que ciudades, campos o carreteras.

De este pais, del otro, del grande, del pequenyo
del que apenas se el mapa da un color desvaido
con las mismas raices que tiene un mismo suenyo
sencillamente anonimos y hablando habeis venido

No conoceis siquiera ni el color de los muros
que vuestra infranqueable compromiso amuralla
La tierra que os entierra la defendeis, seguros
a tiros con la muerte vestida de batalla.

Quedad que asi lo quieren los arboles, los llanos
las minimas partidas de luz que reanima
un solo sentimiento que el mar sacude: Hermanos!
Madrid con vuestro nombre se agranda y se ilumina.

Originally Posted by Stavinski

In spite of it's author being a toff and of dubious sexuality as a result of Charterhouse the best poem I can think of is Siegried Sassoons 'Brother Lead and Sister Steel.' I'll get a copy up soon...

Sorry to be pedantic, but Sassoon was at Marlborough instead of Charterhouse. We were justifiably rather proud of the fact!

Shortly after he left Marlborough, another boy started who would go on to be another of the war poets, Charles Hamilton Sorley. The poem below was found in his kit, following his death by a sniper's bullet at the Battle of Loos in 1915

When You See Millions Of The Mouthless Dead (1915)

When you see millions of the mouthless dead
Across your dreams in pale battalions go,
Say not soft things as other men have said,
That you'll remember. For you need not so.
Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know
It is not curses heaped on each gashed head?
Nor tears. Their blind eyes see not your tears flow.
Nor honour. It is easy to be dead.
Say only this, "They are dead." Then add thereto,
"yet many a better one has died before."
Then, scanning all the overcrowded mass, should you
Perceive one face that you loved heretofore,
It is a spook. None wears the face you knew.
Great death has made all this for evermore.

This is a song by Harvey Andrews which mesmerises me!

Its very sad!



In a station in the city a British soldier stood
Talking to the people there if the people would
Some just stared in hatred, and others turned in pain
And the lonely British soldier wished he was back home again

Come join the British Army! said the posters in his town
See the world and have your fun come serve before the Crown
The jobs were hard to come by and he could not face the dole
So he took his country's shilling and enlisted on the roll

For there was no fear of fighting, the Empire long was lost
Just ten years in the army getting paid for being bossed
Then leave a man experienced a man who's made the grade
A medal and a pension some mem'ries and a trade

Then came the call for Ireland as the call had come before
Another bloody chapter in an endless civil war
The priests they stood on both sides the priests they stood behind
Another fight in Jesus's name the blind against the blind

The soldier stood between them between the whistling stones
And then the broken bottles that led to broken bones
The petrol bombs that burnt his hands the nails that pierced his skin
And wished that he had stayed at home surrounded by his kin

The station filled with people the soldier soon was bored
But better in the station than where the people warred
The room filled up with mothers with daughters and with sons
Who stared with itchy fingers at the soldier and his gun

A yell of fear a screech of brakes the shattering of glass
The window of the station broke to let the package pass
A scream came from the mothers as they ran towards the door
Dragging their children crying from the bomb upon the floor

The soldier stood and could not move his gun he could not use
He knew the bomb had seconds and not minutes on the fuse
He could not run and pick it up and throw it in the street
There were far too many people there too many running feet

Take cover! yelled the soldier, Take cover for your lives
And the Irishmen threw down their young and stood before their wives
They turned towards the soldier their eyes alive with fear
For God's sake save our children or they'll end their short lives here

The soldier moved towards the bomb his stomach like a stone
Why was this his battle God why was he alone
He lay down on the package and he murmured one farewell
To those at home in England to those he loved so well

He saw the sights of summer felt the wind upon his brow
The young girls in the city parks how precious were they now
The soaring of the swallow the beauty of the swan
The music of the turning world so soon would it be gone

A muffled soft explosion and the room began to quake
The soldier blown across the floor his blood a crimson lake
There was no time to cry or shout there was no time to moan
And they turned their children's faces from the blood and from the bones

The crowd outside soon gathered and the ambulances came
To carry off the body of a pawn lost in the game
And the crowd they clapped and cheered and they sang their rebel song
One soldier less to interfere where he did not belong

And will the children growing up learn at their mothers' knees
The story of the soldier who bought their liberty
Who used his youthful body as a means towards an end
Who gave his life to those who called him murderer not friend



Troop

This has been on the board before but it could have been written today:
A Dead Statesman

I could not dig: I dared not rob:
Therefore I lied to please the mob.
Now all my lies are proved untrue
And I must face the men I slew.
What tale shall serve me among
Mine angry and defrauded young?

from Epitaphs of The War 1914- 1918

Rudyard Kipling

[align=center]] 45 Minutes

45 Minutes so they were told
In went our soldiers so brave and so bold
45 Minutes well that was a lie
Soon our brave soldiers had started to die.

45 Minutes that was a lie,
one man who knew was soon to die
45 Minutes was fishy and smelly
That man to die was David Kelly

Those WMD's were never found
Blair insists they are under the ground
Those WMD's went to Iran
How many lies can come from this one man

We will pay the blood price that's what he said
Over one Hundred and twenty are now lying dead
Over one hundred and twenty so far have died
because our Political leader decided to lie.

How many families must pay this blood price
How many sons and daughters to his sacrifice
How do you sleep with blood on your hands
While they lie dying on desert sands.

Roadside bombs and mortar shell
These brave soldiers living in hell
Poor body armour, Poor equipment still
While Brown keeps the money in the till

Snatch Rovers,Wimiks, no armour on
Another life lost, its ok, its not your Son
Blair get a grip, the situation is dire
Sort out your mess, You f*****g liar

We're down in't coyle 'oyle
Where't muck slarts on't winders
We've used all us coyle up
And we're rait down't t'cinders,
But if 'Itler comes
Ee'll nivver findus
Cos we'll be down in't coyle 'oyle
Where't muck slarts on't winders

This needs to be brought to a bigger audience I feel. Just came down the wire this morning. Author is Lt. Col. in the RLC TA.

Evening Whispers on the Somme (Guillemont Cemetery March 1997)

........don't go yet, Sir. Can't you stay and chat with me
A little longer?
Christ! It's nice to have some soldiers here again to see
(Even though you are officers)
I must say you lot look a whole lot stronger
Than we were.
Must'ave been the months of endless bully beef again
And endless sodding bloody rain
Day in - day out; it just gets you down;....... mustn't complain
But it don't seem fair.

.....don't mind them two Captains over there,
Cracking a joke,
They don't mean no disrespect, but can you explain
Who's this bloke
'John Major' that they're laughing about?
Prime Minister is he? Did he know Mr Asquith's dad; is he out?
He's over there, you know, the son I mean
They say his dressing wasn't clean.

'Ere - ave you seen me Mother's brother, Uncle Hal?
(Sargeant Major Henry Cleary)
He were a right bastard, so I'm told - an 'Etaples Canary'
With no heart of gold
I don't believe he's too far from here, come to think,
Maybe Serre Road or Thiepval.
Christ, I'd die for a drink! But anyway, getting back to Uncle Hal
He did well for a Burnley Pal

Did you see the big 'oles at Y Sap and Lochnagar?
The Frogs 'ave filled them in you say?
Good lads those Durham miners; blew the Hun to Kingdom come,
Did they?
O right, Lochnagar is still an 'ole, I see;
Must be bloody HUGE!
We heard the bang from our lines at the Sunken Road -
(What a cracking sub-ter-fuge!)
One of our lads, I think, caused Hawthorne to explode
Just before the whistles blowed..........

"Up lads and at 'em" shouted Mr Jones,
"Follow me," he said.
He were only a young lad himself, and now his bones,
Like ours- are dead.
He got no further than his elder brother,
I was just behind him - to the right.
He's somewhere hereabouts - I heard him call out "Mother"
Over there, the other night.

Sir, I hear you thinking "What's his story"
Why's he lying there - unblinking?"
Well, I can tell you straight, there ain't no glory
Whatsoever in the manner of my death.
One minute I was running - no walking, yet out of breath
Past 'A' Company's revette,
The early morning July sun glinting off my bayonet
All fixed and ready.
Shells, whizzbangs exploding all around, the din were terrible!
But I played my part
When suddenly - those buzzing bullets stitched my heart
And killed my body.

It were a crime ,Sir, to make us walk in all that heavy kit,
Through no-mans-land towards their wire.
After all the Colonel's talk about our fire;
A 'seven-day bombardment'
What a stupid git! We all knew the Boche were underground
In their hardened casements, waiting.........
Waiting, until the sound of our guns stopped.
Then up they popped!

But I s'pose it's only fair to say he did his best
For us, his boys.
It's higher up the blame should stay; Sir 'Enery whats 'is name
With the red tabs, 'Big Noise'
What's 'e know about this game - all safe and dry and well-defended?
To him we're nothing more than toys
To be expended.

Sir, d'you know what I really miss the most........
My main regret these eighty years?
Imagine that! A nineteen year old ghost, who never had
The hopes and fears of being a Dad
Who only ever wanted to have a lad
Of his own, to take fishing.
And when he's older, to the pub, like my Dad did for me
At the Rochdale Miners' Social Club
Christ! Surely for me to ask it isn't much,
Who never had a woman's touch

So do me a favour, Sir, you and your mates,
(Even though you are officers)
Stop yer moaning; don't complain about your fates
You lucky buggers! (Begging your pardon, Sir)
You've all got it made, for any of us here would gladly trade
Places with you. You say you're fifty two
Jesus, what I wouldn't give to have just one more chance to live
And make fifty, too.

But it's getting late and I'm really glad you stopped to chat.
We don't see many soldiers here now,
So me and the lads - even the officers- are pleased for that.
But do me another favour, if you thoughts allow;
See if the old Red Lion's still there
Up in Rochdale, off Market Square.
Have a pint of best, you and yer mates, and think of me
Lying here.........

For eternity.

By Roger Laing