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Joe Cole Oct 2015
The death of the Newfoundland Regiment*

They attacked after the Hawthorne mine was blown
But it never saved them
Newfoundland boys then crossed the line
And death was there to claim them
Most never made it to the starting trench
Now choked with dead and dying
For just four hundred yards away
German machine guns were barking
There is a place called Dead Tree
Where we were not to tread
For it now marks the place
Of so many Newfoundland dead
Beaumont Hamel now the resting place
Of boys so far from home
Beaumont Hamel now the place
Where heroic Newfoundland ghosts
Will ever roam
4 years ago I walked that battlefield along with many others of the Somme battles but Beaumont Hamel was probably the most moving
Lawrence Hall Nov 2017
Come Laughing Home at Twilight

Beaumont-Hamel, 1916

And, O!  Wasn’t he just the Jack the Lad,
A’swellin’ down the Water Street as if –
As if he owned the very paving stones!
He was my beautiful boy, and, sure,
The girls they thought so too: his eyes, his walk;
A man of Newfoundland, my small big man,
Just seventeen, but strong and bold and sure.

Where is he now?  Can you tell me?  Can you?

Don’t tell me he was England’s finest, no –
He was my finest, him and his Da,
His Da, who breathed in sorrow, and was lost,
They say, lost in the fog, among the ice.
But no, he too was killed on the first of July
Only it took him months to cast away,
And drift away, far away, in the mist.

Where is he now?  Can you tell me?  Can you?

I need no kings nor no Kaisers, no,
Nor no statues with fine words writ on’em,
Nor no flags nor no Last Post today:
I only want to see my men come home,
Come laughing home at twilight, boots all mucky,
An’ me fussin’ at ‘em for being’ late,
Come laughing home at twilight...
Rayos Feb 2011
8yrs young
lo0000nnnnnnnnggggggggg
thick  shiny  blue  black  hair
Air Force Papa wanted a Wash N Wear
He wanted mija* with Dorthy Hamill hair

So I was ordered to March down the street
to Emilias Holy Carport
Emilia La Bautista Mexicana
She knew no english but she knew Jesus
She'd cut your hair and save your soul

That day i requested un "Dori Hamel" Cut
She smiled and charismaticly said Amen! Te vas a ver muy bonita

Her holy * tijeras snipped
my hair glided to the cement floor like feathers off angels wings

She made me look right
she made me look left
and when i looked up...
I HAD A MULLET

my tears came down
because of my Dukes of Hazzard crown
and I marched home to Dixie
TRANSLATIONS:
mija-spanish for daughter
La Bautista-The  Mexican baptist
tevas ver bonita-you will look very pretty
*Tijeras-scissors
Cameron Boyd Jun 2016
Wet skies
Grey dawn
Blankets the coast.
Black rocks
Sea foam
Triggers the most
Atlantic applause,
An encore to those
Just hearty enough
To make a life on The Rock.

And to answer the call,
Between stone cracks,
Moss roots,
And squalls,
A garden was planted
Where nothing
Had grown
Before.

Before...

Before the Gardener came
The coast was a love-lettered painting,
A bouquet to the sun,
Orange, red, and yellow flattery
Through living imitation.

"Seek ye first the kingdom of God,"
Said the sign
On the gate
At the edge of St Johns.
"But I think I've finally found it,"
Said the man
Creeping silent
With his too sharp sheers
Cutting flowers
Uninvited. -
- Everyone's front lawn
A memory
Of what united
Them for two score years.

****** hands dropping pedals on his way to the shore,
"Don't worry," said the man,
"I don't want to come back,
With any luck," he said again,
"I think this should be enough."
As he placed in the arrangement
A note that read,
"Je suis
Désolé.
Bitte fragen Sie nicht
Für mehr."




100 years ago, July 1st, 1916, the entire Newfoundland and Labrador regiment was killed at Beaumont-Hamel, during the Battle of the Somme in World War I. Of 780, only 68 reported for roll-call the next day.
After 40 some years of having no military of their own, they had mustered up a unit of volunteers to support the war effort. 90% of them never made it through their first engagement.
Canada Day isn't just about celebrating.
Anurag Jun 2014
In the silence of atrocity she grieve
the ache she procured on Saturday eve,
oh she grieves.
so kind, serene he was at first
when she met him on Hamel's street.
would dress pink
and hairs so neat
would live time with him.
slowly, nicely, time
edged.
''I, will marry you and save your heart with me''
he pledged!!
as they lay in serenity.
moon and sun and stars gazing their love
the continuous curve that won't over,
but then came the wind so hard,
hours stunned it
A Saturday eve
the orange love turned into a clover.
he became frenzied and fierce
voices flying up and decisions pierce.
her beauty turned red,
swollen mouth and cut hairs,
shouting stories and crying nights.
oh, how the crushed dreams and
horror bites.
made one lass,
mum, afraid and hurt.
now the nights are dried.
the sun ignorant.
he left.
Alone in a dark spot, silence
silence every air
and In the silence of atrocity she grieve
the ache she procured on Saturday eve,
oh she grieves..
Lawrence Hall Jul 2019
God bless Canada

                   Come Laughing Home at Twilight

                           Beaumont-Hamel, 1916

And, O!  Wasn’t he just the Jack the Lad,
A’swellin’ down the Water Street as if –
As if he owned the very paving stones!
He was my beautiful boy, and, sure,
The girls they thought so too: his eyes, his walk;
A man of Newfoundland, my small big man,
Just seventeen, but strong and bold and sure.

Where is he now?  Can you tell me?  Can you?

Don’t tell me he was England’s finest, no –
He was my finest, him and his Da,
His Da, who breathed in sorrow, and was lost,
They say, lost in the fog, among the ice.
But no, he too was killed on the first of July
Only it took him months to cast away,
And drift away, far away, into the mist.

Where is he now?  Can you tell me?  Can you?

I need no Kings nor no Kaisers, no,
Nor no statues with fine words writ on’em,
Nor no flags nor no Last Post today:
I only want to see my men come home,
Come laughing home at twilight, boots all mucky,
An’ me fussin’ at ‘em for bein’ late,
Come laughing home at twilight.
Your ‘umble scrivener’s site is:

Reactionarydrivel.blogspot.com

It’s not at all reactionary, tho’ it might be drivel.

Lawrence Hall’s vanity publications are available on amazon.com as Kindle and on bits of dead tree:  The Road to Magdalena, Paleo-Hippies at Work and Play, Lady with a Dead Turtle, Don’t Forget Your Shoes and Grapes, Coffee and a Dead Alligator to Go, and Dispatches from the Colonial Office.
Lawrence Hall Jul 2022
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Poeticdrivel.blogspot.com


                                    A repost for Canada Day:

                           Come Laughing Home at Twilight

Beaumont-Hamel, 1916

And, O!  Wasn’t he just the Jack the Lad,
A’swellin’ down the Water Street as if –
As if he owned the very paving stones!
He was my beautiful boy, and, sure,
The girls they thought so too: his eyes, his walk;
A man of Newfoundland, my small big man,
Just seventeen, but strong and bold and sure.

Where is he now?  Can you tell me?  Can you?

Don’t tell me he was England’s finest, no –
He was my finest, him and his Da,
His Da, who breathed in sorrow, and was lost,
They say, lost in the fog, among the ice.
But no, he too was killed on the first of July
Only it took him months to cast away,
And drift away, far away, in the mist.

Where is he now?  Can you tell me?  Can you?

I need no Kings nor no Kaisers, no,
Nor no statues with fine words writ on’em,
Nor no flags nor no Last Post today:
I only want to see my men come home,
Come laughing home at twilight, boots all mucky,
An’ me fussin’ at ‘em for being’ late,
Come laughing home at twilight.
Lawrence Hall Jul 29
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                     The Olympics as Imagined by John Milton


                        On the anniversary of the martyrdom of

                                        Father Jacques Hamel


The Olympics this year seem demon-haunted -
Christians, Jews, and amateurs not wanted
THE CUPBOARD OF THE YESTERDAYS

The War marches
across the map

on little coloured pins

blood red for us &
bright green for them.

The colours faltering
in the candlelight

after the lights
had gone out.

One can still see holes
from the previous War

that pinned men down
so that they

would never move again
they the never returning.

THE CUPBOARD OF THE YESTERDAYS
falling from mother's sleepy hand.

"War is a cruelly destructive thing..."
it both begins & ends.

Men wriggle under
coloured pins & die.

Saki smiles sardonically
from THE TOYS OF PEACE.

I move a pin to where
father maybe is.

I am glad
mother sleeps at last.

In the somewhere of now
a bullet splinters bone

my father falls

the agony of the moment
revealed in the telegram

that will come
a month later.

Father has become
History.

Mother will read her Saki
and cry and try

not to let me see
her cry.

I, a small boy
can't cry.

Death appears
like a fairy story.

What War
awaits me?

*

The Cupboard of the Yesterdays," a short story written by Saki aka H. H. Munro a few years before he was killed on the Western Front in 1916,.

"War is a cruelly destructive thing," said the Wanderer, dropping his newspaper to the floor and staring reflectively into space.

But the old atmosphere will have changed, the glamour will have gone; the dust of formality and bureaucratic neatness will slowly settle down over the time-honoured landmarks; the Sanjak of Novi Bazar, the Muersteg Agreement, the Komitadje bands, the Vilayet of Adrianople, all those familiar outlandish names and things and places, that we have known so long as part and parcel of the Balkan Question, will have passed away into the cupboard of yesterdays, as completely as the Hansa League and the wars of the Guises.

At the start of the First World War Munro was 43 and officially over-age to enlist, but he refused a commission and joined the 2nd King Edward's Horse as an ordinary trooper. He later transferred to the 22nd Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers, in which he rose to the rank of lance sergeant.

More than once he returned to the battlefield when officially still too sick or injured. In November 1916 he was sheltering in a shell crater near Beaumont-Hamel, France, during the Battle of the Ancre, when he was killed by a German ******. According to several sources, his last words were "Put that ****** cigarette out!"

Munro has no known grave.

— The End —