"passchendaele" poems
Passchendaele.
Off dead mens lips
fell the clarion call.
"Away up lads
Away us all--
Forward
Forward
till we fall !!"
Off dead mens lips--
fell the clarion call.
Jun 7, 2015
Jun 7, 2015 at 2:35 PM UTC
He worked at the War Department,
in the Munitions Ministry,
for the Bureau of Cannon Fodder
on the Condolence Committee.
“On behalf of George, our king,
and the grieving British nation
We regret to have to share with you
the following information….”
Passchendaele was at its height,
he’d written letters by the score.
On the Altars of Incompetence,
what’s a hundred thousand more?
It was the sort of sinecure
in which he took a certain pride:
Informing British parents
that their darling boys had died.
His department heads approved
of his selfless dedication,
recording for posterity
each man’s final destination.
Thus it was they failed to notice
when he received a telegram.
That day he went back to his flat
a changed and broken man..
When next day, his chair was empty,
and they received a telegram,
they were grieved to be informed:
He’d died by his own hand.
“On behalf of George, our king,
and the grieving British nation
I regret to have to share with you
the following information….”
Jan 24, 2012
Jan 24, 2012 at 1:24 AM UTC
I was sent to work at the old Repat.
It was forty years since the war,
Those ancient diggers would sit and swear
At the pain of the limbs they wore,
The wounds would open as years went by,
They’d come for another slice,
That war was never over for them,
And morphine was paradise.
I saw one veteran struggle and curse
As he ripped at the buckles and straps,
The new prosthesis had rubbed him raw
As his knee began to relapse.
He tore the leg from his wounded stump
Sat on his bed, and roared,
Then swung the article over his head
And flung it across the ward.
The others had ducked as the leg took off
And bounced off the opposite wall,
‘I’ll have to report you,’ the nurse exclaimed,
‘It’s a good leg, after all!’
‘You wear it then,’ was the man’s response,
‘For it’s driving me insane,
What would you know of Flanders Fields?
You wouldn’t deal with the pain!’
My job was to settle and calm him down
So I asked him about his leg,
‘When and where did you lose it, Dig?’
The veteran tossed his head.
‘You’ve heard of a place called Flanders Fields
Where the bullets came in like hail?
Well, I was there with the Anzac’s, son,
At a place called Passchendaele.’
‘Our Generals were trying to ****** us,
I swear, on my mother’s head,
They kept on sending us over the top
Until half of the men were dead.
The German gunners would enfilade
As we struggled against the mud,
I’ll never forget the battlefield,
It was spattered with bones and blood.
They’d send artillery shells across
At the height of a soldier’s knee,
We’d watch them come as they parted the grass,
They were Grasscutters, you see!
Well, I was running with bayonet fixed
And praying for God’s good grace,
When suddenly I was lying there,
I’d tumbled, flat on my face.’
‘It’s strange that I never felt a thing,
When the Grasscutter got me,
It took a while ‘til I saw my leg
Was gone, from under the knee.
But that was the end of the war for me,
The end of the life I’d known,
I spent some time back in Blighty, then
I came on a ship, back home.’
I never chided those men in there
Though they’d curse and swear, and roar,
For every man was a hero where
They'd trudged in mud through the war.
That Repat. job was a fill-in job
And I left, still young and hale,
But I never forgot the Grasscutter
Or the man from Passchendaele.
David Lewis Paget
Mar 13, 2014
Mar 13, 2014 at 5:39 AM UTC
Although we were told
that casualties would be high,
still we rose up,
answering the officer's whistle-
moving our legs through the muck-
cutting our way through
the barbed wire of doubt-
We charged across Love's minefield
driving the foe before us
at this, Love's Passchendaele.
Mar 16, 2014
Mar 16, 2014 at 8:34 AM UTC
Here's to all my Aussie friends.
You fought with bravery and honor
at Kimberley, Passchendaele,
Gallipoli, Romani, Crete,
Tobruck, Milne Bay, Yongju
and even in Vietnam.
And I know why you did it.
Abounding in your back yards
were stalking cassowaries, spiders
that rot your flesh, invisible
but lethal jelly fish,
Coastal Taipan and Brown snakes,
not to mention saltwater crocodiles
Great White sharks, Stone Fish,
blue ringed octopi and
the odd Marble Cone Snail.
War must have seemed safe
compared to he horrors of home.
Here's to you mates. Fair Dinkum.
I would have been on the first
transport out, too.
~mce
Jan 13, 2016
Jan 13, 2016 at 9:33 AM UTC
Under the family banner
talking about my nana
who was not fat,
I would say more rounded than that and
a Victorian lass
pince nez on her nose and a tin of snuff,a pinch of
which went.. but that enough..
Did I say,she was not fat?
she was grounded in the roots of
cotton mills and rolling hills
and hobnailed clogs and miners boots,she's now long gone but fair play to her, she lived a good few years after reaching ninety one,I guess it was the Mackeson that helped her to live so very long.
Grandad,dad of my dad fought in the great war which brought him ****** all except a medal from the military for being outstanding in the fields of bravery,he battled Passchendaele each and every day until like all good men and soldiers he faded,faded slowly,slowly,slowly and marched quite vaguely somewhere far away.
My dad was a great dad a wait and then we'll see dad,a make your Sunday tea dad,but you never see the greatness when you're stood upon its shoulder,that only happens if you're lucky when you get a little older and I'm older now,able to look back and see how this family handed down to me,that look back into history.....
Jun 9, 2014
Jun 9, 2014 at 7:53 AM UTC
Four hundred thousand soldiers slain, were drowned within unholy mud.
Corpses of the now redundant gave their best and got their worst.
Men in boots in July seen.
Images none desire upon the front of magazines.
Their guns were emptied, their lives were spent.
Lived for the moment, only lent.
Brave men all of them young,loyal and true.
Another Belgian battlefield echoed with the failing death.
So sad, boys, nearly men caught their last breath.
Bless the battlefield upon which they fell,relieved of sounds of gunfire, as they left the war raged hell.
Bravery from all sides shown,by young in spirit, never grown.
Guessing with death came freedom, unpleasant release.
(C)LIVVI
Jul 31, 2017
Jul 31, 2017 at 2:25 PM UTC
The dawn cracks as the majestic artillery ceases its roar.
I sit in a trench that once sustained life.
A boy in men’s clothes, watching and waiting.
The whistle sounds that puts my heart in my throat, as fear rolls across my body.
I climb the 20 foot ladder in seconds, over the top rifle at the ready.
I’ll do my part for king and country.
As I look across the writhing and moaning muddy hell.
The barking of machine guns reach my ears.
With the sound of steel bees whizzing past my head I run past the barbed wire nest that protects our trench.
As I sprint with a scream in my voice, a fear in my heart and heroics running through my brain.
I see the enemy close yet a 1000 miles away.
Suddenly the world goes quiet, slows, my legs fail and I fall to the embrace of the mud.
Another lost son to the heavenly hell of Passchendaele
Mar 26, 2018
Mar 26, 2018 at 5:09 PM UTC
King, Queen, honor of your Country Men
The blind man's fate, while another man waits
The reality, brutality, walk a line of mortality
The blooded poppies in the fields I've seen
I know i can't put a name to your face
Guess you hold a your love one in place
Wonder if she will ever be the same
Did she call you, her sweetest flame
Well you start to welled yours ocean eyes up
The droplets fall from the soul punctured cup
A father would of been so proud
Every moment he hides the tears he ploughed
Did you do it for your hearts dedication
Mother sorry for no more family generation
In the distance you can hear the soldiers wade
Beating to the drums of a trumpet fade
Bold and brave the words upon the grave
When you took your life, so i could be saved
The blooded poppies in the fields I've seen
The reality, brutality, walk a line of mortality
The blind man's fate, while another man waits
King , Queen, honor of your Country Men
Copyright 2018 MPOETB.
Mar 7, 2018
Mar 7, 2018 at 5:49 AM UTC
THE SOLDIER
Billy Clark was seventeen
When he went off to war.
He kissed his mum and dad goodbye
And walked out through the door.
He kissed his girl at the station
And wiped away her tears.
He said that he’d be back again
If it took a thousand years.
He headed for the trenches,
For Afghanistan.
Gallipoli, The Falklands.
Beirut and Vietnam.
He set off for Dunkirk,
Agincourt and Troy.
Passchendaele would make
A man out of a boy.
A million Billy Clarks
Have gone away to war.
Old men sit and shake their heads.
They’ve passed this way before.
He was in the thick of it
Right from the very start.
But Billy was a brave boy
With a patriotic heart.
Billy fought his hardest
But he was in a fix.
These were guns and tanks he faced
Not childhood toys and sticks.
Now, Billy was no coward,
But he was scared as hell.
No boy should have to bury
His comrades where they fell.
It took a thousand years
For Billy to return
And still the burning question is:
When will we ever learn?
When will this crazy world unite
And watch each others’ back?
When media screams the headline:
‘GREEN MEN FROM MARS ATTACK!!!!’.
A million Billy Clarks
Have gone away to war.
Old men sit and shake their heads
They’ve seen it all before.
Apr 28, 2019
Apr 28, 2019 at 5:00 PM UTC
The sound of whistle
A rattle of gunfire
Dodging the shrapnel
Straight over the barbed wire
Heading towards the enemy, I hold my breath
Say a prayer, as we plunge into our death
Through the smoke, mud and lead
Our foe lies just ahead
Clasping my rifle tight
Their guns ablaze with spite
We get so close, yet still too far
With burst of fire I go down
No one near, I choke a cry
No one hears, my time is nigh
See my comrades falling down
In the shrill their voices drown
The wailing shells - our passing bells
Soon my friends we'll meet again
And so we die at Passchendaele
Nov 8, 2018
Nov 8, 2018 at 1:54 PM UTC
. give things .
to some one else,
will they fall upon flesh,
rip it, rearrange,
leave to sleep?
maybe it were their rags.
handle with care,
small eggs hold with love,
rearrange tenderly, add cake.
we saw hedd wyn, yesterday.
sbm.
Hedd Wyn
Poet
Hedd Wyn was a Welsh language poet who was killed during the Battle of Passchendaele in World War I. He was posthumously awarded the bard’s chair at the 1917 National Eisteddfod. Wikipedia
Born: January 13, 1887, Trawsfynydd
Died: July 31, 1917
Jan 5, 2018
Jan 5, 2018 at 1:21 AM UTC
Silence, nothing else but silence now, am I really dead
No more the sound of cannon fire or smell of rotting dead
Is this the death I feared so long, is this my eternal rest
The grasp of war relinquished now, my duty dispossessed
Incessant rain, falls constantly, to torment and pain my soul
The battlefield a quagmire now, that swallows’ soldiers whole
Thousands, countless thousands of men now dead or dying
Hell, on Earth is Passchendaele, to be its witness, horrifying
I have no sense of being now, my corpse bequeathed of breath,
My soul now purged, awaits its fate to meet the sacrament of death
My dreams of home abandoned now, my weapons cast aside
Now duty paid to God and King, my epitaph epitomised
But from the very brink of death, I feel my pain again
Returning from the heavenly gates, soaked by that ****** rain
Delivered from God’s holy grace to Satan’s gates revived
From the peace of my eternal sleep, my comfort now deprived
Back to Pilckem Ridge once more, to a Flanders blood-soaked trench
Where grey faced lads with bowing heads, sit silent in the stench
Corpses laying side by side, half buried in oozing mud
All faith and hope abandoned, the price now paid in flesh and blood
I prey for the Lord to take me and release me from this hell
Remove me from perdition, reposed in perpetuity to sleep where angels dwell
Let me succumb, dispense with me, undiminished in your grace
Deliver me to eternity and redeem me from this awful place
My headstone stands on hallowed ground, near Tyne Cot, ***** Town
Eternal sleep, my answered prayer, now rest in peace where I lay down
I gave the best that I could give, till I could give no more
Then blessed the Lord that saved my soul, but cursed the ****** war
Jun 7, 2019
Jun 7, 2019 at 2:43 PM UTC