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Lachlan Rocca Jun 2015
He’s gone away forever,
Mother says he’ll be back soon,
But it’s going to be just like dad.
He’s been away since June.

It’s hard to hold back tears
When mother speaks his name
I falter upon telling her
That he’ll never be back again

The night before he went
He sat down by my bed
“You take good care of mother”
That’s the last thing that he said.

He went to war out of hatred
Which blurred his sense of love
For those he held so sacred.
And now he sits above.
RH 78 Dec 2014
In the trench alone.
when will I go home?
From No mans land I hear another moan.
surely, he will not go home.
Mans fight to the death.
"Please come home" our nearest say under their breath.
Blood turns the mud red.
How many more boys and men will go home dead?
A moments silence.
Bird song.
A trickling stream.
It's just a dream.
Mustard gas!
Barbed wire!
Gun fire!
In the trench alone.
When will I go home?
RH 78 Dec 2014
Nigel the soldier
Shoulders big as boulders
Up over the top
Tried not to stop
Tripped on some wire
Dodged all gun fire
Jumped back up again
Then it started to rain
Got to the other side
In one giant stride
Took some enemy out
They began to shout
Nowhere else to go
In a place he didn't know
Nigel the brave
Resting forever in an unmarked grave
RH 78 Dec 2014
Take a rest
is this gods test?
There is a stench resonating from the trench.
Death appears in many forms. A distorted face looks out from the mud unaware of what has been left behind. The bare trunk of a tree no longer able to sway in the wind. Mans broken spirit looking for a way to escape the living hell. No surrender. When will it end? No time to rest I must keep digging.
RH 78 Dec 2014
This is it.
The time has come.
My final hour.
I miss my mum.
I'm at the front.
I heard some shots.
I'm feeling scared.
I miss mum lots.
If I make it I'll make mum proud.
The shells are close now.
The shells are loud.
I'm ready to go
To Jump over the top.
I cannot hear.
My ears went pop.
I look to the left they tell me go.
I should have been honest and let them know.
I'm just a kid the youngest around.
I don't want to go but I'm duty bound.
For king and country I'll go over the top.
In no mans land I will not drop.
MereCat Nov 2014
04:14 and the shadows are long
A boy pressed into a rail-side bench
Raises his arms to shelter himself
From the cloudless sky
He ticks off seconds with the twitch of his left knee
And the jump of his unhinging jaw
He falls
He falls nowhere
But flat, back, motionless in his seat
Hands cocooning head like a heavy day’s work
And then digging up and pressing down
Trying to rid himself of the sounds
Which splice him like glass shards
Or screaming shrapnel
And mutilate
His view of a pretty English station
And a blue steam engine
Beaming like the moon for which it was named
04:18 and he sets himself straight
Like ***** shoelaces
Or cards on the mantelpiece
Winds a bit of string
Around his wedding finger
And croons
As a man inside a toddler
Re-wired refrains
Lick his lips like soup stains
       Pack up your troubles…
                Long way to Tipperary…
        In your old kit bag…
                                 I wonder who’s…
                My heart’s right there…
                                 Kissing her now…
         Smile, smile, smile…

And from my compartment
I watch him fade like
An ink blot from a pillow case
While a boy who looks a lot like him
Turns with purposeful avoidance
And takes the opposite view
Of a pretty English station
He soothes the angry creases
Of his forehead
Of his uniform
And smiles
Smiles
Smiles
And mutters to himself
And they said it would be over by Christmas
04:14 and the shadows are long
A boy pressed into a rail-side bench
Jogs his knees
With the obligatory poppy
His mum pushed into the zip of his winter coat
Drooping like a hangnail
He is busied and hassled
By the phone in his palm
It plays an odd kind of game
Where those who die
Are allowed to come back
And press *Retry
Hannah Yardley Sep 2014
He was only 16,
                                                          ­      He wanted to join,
he was too young to die,
                                                         ­       he was old enough to fight,
the loss for his family,
                                                      ­          for the good of his country,
he had so much to live for,
                                                         ­       he had so much to die for,
that poor boy,*
                                                         ­       that good boy.
I was going to enter a poetry competition in my college but I backed out. It had to be about war or conflict and this was what i came up with.
KZ Oct 2014
What was once a battlefield,
Was now a plain field,
Where the bodies remained buried,
And where life had varied,
It was society that had become wearied.**
//KZ.M
Eh...not feeling this!
Please give feedback...much needed
Aaron Wallis Sep 2014
Burly bleak plumes roll out aloft corn
Where the dragon fell post spin and ditch
A wretched hulk of ruin splintered and worn
Amongst endless blanch green fields which

Arc with a gust and apart where he treads,
Dragging his silk cape afar from flame
Clueless and concussed to a near house he heads
With a tattered scarf that constricts yet ***** about his mane

Black fists of cloud had boomed around him as they soared
His beast spat metal fire whilst the pale sky turned dull
The zipping ballet of warfare smiled throughout as motors roared
Gnashing its teeth and making forgotten martyrs of them all

Shuddering not from demise rather conflict as a whole
He is as content with death as he is to survive
Just not burn the world and condemn his soul
A horror; men of rule seem keen to keep alive

An agrarian self-dines rancorous and crocked
Half sat, improperly perched from where he was shot
Monsters had come for him once before this day
They took his spouse and his daughter and then took them away

He can hear but does not hark to the battle aloft
It is now like the rain and the trees in a gust
But to the boom and the shake he stands with a cough
And as he cites the invader he sees he must do what he must

The grower limps out with a Chassepot in his arms
As the airman’s hands reach up and he falls to his knees
With beads on his brow the man pleads with met palms
The crofter sees naught but a Prussian blue monster disease

The pilot knows his death, ‘Ich bin nicht sicher, wo ich will gehen?”
The old Frenchman just sniggers as he thinks never again
With the rifle’s slug now spent and the horror sent back to his hell
The farmer mumbles to himself, ‘je dois me chercher une pelle,”
Wars happen. It is *******
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