Were you brave?
Were you quaking?
Were you tough or were you faking?
Did you cry for your Mum’s embrace?
Or bite your cheek just to save face?
Did your letters euphemise?
Were they scribed with tear filled eyes?
Did you pray for silent nights?
Try to unsee grisly sights?
Did you think how life would be if you made it back across the sea?
Did you deliver a mate’s last note and hug his Mum with a lump in your throat?
Did you come home claiming glory or never voice your untold story?
Your sacrifice I can’t repay,
and so I honour on this day
a face that is unknown to me
who paid the price for my liberty.

With leaves fireworking
their last defiant blaze
against grey skies and the mud,
once again I forget to remember

the muted tannoy announces silence
for customers and staff
and the surreal descends
among the tins of peas and carrots

where the absence of the normal clatter
suddenly roars, catches in my throat,
the plaintive, Sally Army bugler
scoring the sadness in these aisles,
these isles

with two minutes passed,
the cacophony of the tide
of plant based diets
and too early Stollen returns
to wash over, to forget

Standing on my driveway
Gazing left and right
Thinking of the diggers
Who left their homes to fight

Thankful I can stand here
Proud as I can be
Of men and women’s sacrifice
Made for you and me
To be free
To stand on our driveway.

The time has come again,
Of commemoration,
To the men who fought,
At their final destination.

Years and years ago,
Let out, was a vast strife,
And among that war,
A man who lost his life.

Remembering those soldiers,
Lines and lines of men,
Who dreamt of protecting,
Since they were merely ten.

They fell while serving,
But their dreams were met,
And on this solemn day,
We say, “Lest We Forget.”

Thick gravy mud incessantly pulling at my boots,
******* and squelching it’s distaste at its failure with each step I evade its clutches,
Brown hail flying in all directions ripping into flesh and taking eyes,
Ears reverberating with the excruciating din of falling shells,
Accompanied with the desperate screams  of my comrades.
Like hells orchestra,
Low rumbles culminating in shrieking sopranos,
Piercing, Deafening,
It’s very lack of percussion spreads fear throughout the ranks,
Through it all there comes a sinister silence,
The true calm before the next storm,
Medics being screamed for in every direction,
Instructions being bellowed to grasp some pathetic sense of order,
In this chaotic pandemonium we push on without hope,
Following orders,
The crescendo of destruction starts again,
Louder, Angrier,
The poetic lunacy of dying in vain,
Our last moments played out like some poorly written depraved play,
Cannon fodder,
Our own remains serving as the uneven carpet of sickly maroon within our trench,
The smell so powerful that I baulk,
Eyes constantly stinging and streaming,
All my senses being flayed in unison,
This is the price we pay for your freedom,
This is the truth of what we endure,
So many deserving so much yet left with so little,
Lest we forget,
Lest we forget.
Lest we forget.

In fields of red our soldiers sleep
Their souls in heaven for God to keep

Our freedom comes at such a cost
We will remember the lives they lost

An endless sleep brought on by war
We pray for peace forevermore

But we know a day will come
When we will call our brave and young

To take up arms and defend our land
So we ask for God's mighty hand

Our country's one full of free men
Because of thousands who'll never wake again

So as I watch the red sun set
I Whisper their names lest we forget