"soldiering" poems
I am not just a person in
a uniform, I am a Soldier.
Every time I arise, I obey;
Each time she calls, I step up
To defend her freedom,
To restore her home of peace
I arise, I obey, I soldier on.
Into the forest of her terrors
I charge, not without fear for that
which is mine but with love and strength
and faith, I March. Defending the labour
of heroes past, I march; fighting
for dreams of her children bright-
the future she deserves.
I arise, I obey, I soldier on.
In the army I serve Nigeria, my
Country with heart, might and spine.
Though a thousand times I have fallen,
bits and pieces of me, lost to her darkness,
still I obey, knowing it may be my last. I arise,
leaving my family and friends behind.
I obey your call of duty. My service and loyalty
I pack on with my combat gear, that you may live
to see yet another day, to feel yet another ray of
light on your face. I am not just a person in a uniform.
I am your Soldier, the Nigerian Soldier,
Ambushed and slaughtered in 40s, 70s and 100
for lack of resources.
Bless me O Nigeria as I arise and obey
Send me to your enemies with arsenals
and might to match the fire in my eyes.
As opposed to the massacres of me, let
the headlines read of our gallant victory
For my victory is yours over those who
threaten our unity.
I am not just a person in a uniform.
I am your Soldier
Do not let my bravery dissipate to stupidity
For I rise, I obey, I soldier on
still.
©Belema .S. Ekine
©belemascribbles
Dec 23, 2018
Dec 23, 2018 at 6:51 PM UTC
Lay rest your flashing glaze of wishes
Down received for a moment
Breathy bow lifts to hold
and waver across few measures
Sienna and topaz
Sienna and topaz
Singe and simmer
Shine and glimmer against
All the thoughts born and dead
What makes you eager to rise
If it is not sensing gone away stories
or nursing the aches that lunge through anywhere else but here
While you replay and delay all creation
the blossoming goes unseen
She, the maiden is reigning
Une palais à remplir
Une palais à remplir
where she is her own queen
Her oceans made of no time channel open mouths
flooding its spill
She waded into The archer
Downed in his own vessel he mistook himself the pilot of
He, marooned in the surrender of damp and fertile places
where in Death he is still recovering
Soldiering and sullen
Soldiering and sullen
He is choking, and can not stop to see or savor the blossoms rising from his own till
Jan 5, 2022
Jan 5, 2022 at 9:03 PM UTC
The cranes flew and the city grew and what did I do?
put my head in the sand,
so I could no longer see the change that was happening all around me.
A land fit for heroes,city tycoons and wannabe Nero's and now't left in the stew *** for me or for you lot,
and how do you feel about that?
More money than sense and scant recompense for the builders who toil,who make the monsters that rise and eat up the soil, despoiling the land,more heads in the sand but holding out hands for that scant recompense.
Reconciling the bile in their throats with those city gent suits in their trilby's and coats and soldiering on until the earth is all gone.
A legacy indeed for them who would scramble in scrub land and grow things to feed the dysfunction of family,
what seeds we have sown,how defectively grown we've become and all for the buildings that greedily search out the sun,
somewhere up in the heights.
Oct 13, 2013
Oct 13, 2013 at 5:06 AM UTC
We two boys together clinging,
One the other never leaving,
Up and down the roads going—North and South excursions making,
Power enjoying—elbows stretching—fingers clutching,
Arm’d and fearless—eating, drinking, sleeping, loving,
No law less than ourselves owning—sailing, soldiering, thieving, threatening,
Misers, menials, priests alarming—air breathing, water drinking, on the turf or the sea-beach dancing,
Cities wrenching, ease scorning, statutes mocking, feebleness chasing,
Fulfilling our foray.
4k
you came in from the cold dressed bold
under a black flag like isis on the road
to baghdad in a red ferrari going all john
le carré defecting with the little drummer
girl laurie in a deadly affair expecting
the honourable school boy when i'm used
to being a most wanted man -
now i'm no naïve and sentimental lover, baby
i'm the perfect spy and this ain't a small town
in germany but ich bin ein berliner, fraulein -
you better make this your last call for the dead
- it was (y)our kind of game playing
tinkering tailoring soldiering spying -
doodling smiley's people on the side
acting like absolute friends with fred
the constant gardener at the russia house
and red the tailor of panama
like a ***** with a straw up your nose
in the looking glass war
but if you do it again -
let me tell you a secret, pilgrim
i'll drop you where you lie -
it'll be a ****** of quality, baby
and that's a delicate truth
- you were our kind of traitor
on the blue mesa.
r ~ 11/14/14
i like john le carré
:)
Nov 14, 2014
Nov 14, 2014 at 8:48 AM UTC
Why do I love?
Is it because I want to feel loved in recoil or is it the thought of love in absentia soldiering me to asset love.
Tell me what love is?
Love is the reason I want to get out of bed early in morning to watch the sunrise in her presence,
Love makes my feet numb and my heart seek solitude whenever she stands next to me or sit beside me in the bus on the journey to free my heart.
Love takes authority of your heart’s emotions desire that feel like a burden, not to her they aren’t,
Love gives you perception, to see her for who she is, not what she can’t be but what she’s worth.
Love is a ****** who invariably needs rehab to stay on track and feel alive where there’s oblivion in array.
Ask me what love isn’t?
Love isn’t waiting for you across the street,
Love wants you to play a game of chase, chase me if you fancy me love said.
Love isn’t a pack of sheath you keep in your ripped side pocket jean for a quickie, Love isn’t a puppy nor a cub you can teach to play a game of fetch nor play dead,
Love isn’t your wrecked black sedan you can panel beat back to its mint right condition,
Love isn’t your typical Cinderella fairytale were the glass slipper is fated to fit foolproof,
Why do I love you asked!
I love to know love, what it’s like to put her in rehab ahead of enemy lines and what it’s like to see the perception of her own personification.
Jan 5, 2019
Jan 5, 2019 at 7:39 AM UTC
Summer in Bermuda, licker could be nice
An over dramatic garden
on a phosphorescent football.
There's a stream running through,
In translucent yellow.
Fertile with life passing by.
This thing inside me, this army of strife,
Is soldiering around me against the malitia of life.
I'm passing by with a strong gain of muster,
Treading through the garden with childlike guster.
Smoke another cigerrette, dream of watching four tet.
Guess you could call this the calm before the storm.
May 23, 2016
May 23, 2016 at 6:00 PM UTC
Around the backs of houses:
Overgrowth cloaked a
Horde of little rascals with
Pockets full of pennies.
Some were almost as tall as the
Highest stalks and jumped
Once a minute to gauge the number
Of silly long strides left to spring from.
Eyes fixed forwards, soldiering
On to the treeline and then just
Beyond - Through the ditch and
Brambles, emerging onto stones:
Ten feet towered with a
Steep ascent as a clear warning
Raptly ignored by the imps --
The chasers of thrills and stories
And melted misshapen metal -
Wherein lies the innocence of their
Treacherous endeavors. Those
Pennies would return mangled and bent
Enough to weave a tale of valiance
And near-death peril so captivating
It couldn't possibly be spun;
For in your hand you held a token.
"The world vibrated and ear drums
Exploded, running to cover from
The screaming, steaming demon:
Dublin to Belfast express!"
They would say.
May 17, 2015
May 17, 2015 at 4:30 PM UTC
Consider the new dances not of this current newsy
Riddle the wail of the police siren
See how fast the robbers run
And the crooks stay still
Consider the new drunks of the prohibition revolution
What are those sons o' guns getting loaded on?
Most likely the lure of the fish stream which trickles far & fast
Past three
Consider the being not allowed to write the next letter
Singed hair reaches up into the spreading air
And she's gone
Just like that
Consider the heart in the shape of a telescope pointing to the ground
What will the magnitude of a flash of red say?
Anger sits next to sorrow
And shares a shot and a drink
Consider the days ones head is so heavy & ******
Thomas can't even stand still or lay in His bed
Soldiering on through the thicket of the fog
To hear the children play with the white dog
Consider the eyes which open in the morning to see neighbors crying
Whether they feel anything at all is of no importance
The eye sees
The mind judges
Consider the center of a being in the jukebox next to the vinyl
Blood soaked tear drop ripples of vibrations can't talk
Up until you came in here
I was having a hell of a time
Consider the illogical reason of reason theoretical waitress schemes
She wears orange to match Her hair, which she seems angry about
Maybe the heat of the hue
Is actually true
Consider the yawning for an entire lifetime
Reeling back the eyes to see Buddha, Jesus, and Elvis
Playing
Strip Poker
Consider the communal misfortunes where tea is spilt on a biblical purpose
Where the tyrannical pyramids grew feet, got up & left
Sheik chicks see themselves only once
In the dunce, then move on
Consider the moving cars through highways packed in like graveyards
Making a living but
Never
Living
Consider the constitution wearing an earring the size of your eyeball
Dashing yet sophisticated weak and ignorant
Sprinkled with an ironic sense
Of self-confidence
Consider the birth of something new
Being there and breathing
Going through the whole ordeal
Then dying with it
Jun 6, 2011
Jun 6, 2011 at 12:11 AM UTC
Aching hearts or burning bridges?
My mind races as quickly as your footsteps run amok in my sanctuary.
No peace of mind resides, so peace, I have to leave you behind. Love is all you need, what a fallacy. Trust builds real love. If it flees then love is but a drug, numbing senses, dulling intuitions, instincts,
If it smells like rotten eggs, it stinks
Pleadings and pleasings,
Return to sender please.
Wrong address because you’re not ready to please my mind, ease my mind. Don’t want to me to see the last seen.
Foibles, fumbles, stumbles,
Reminiscent mistakes are daggers to my heart.
Yet, out of the bloodbath comes no effort made to ease the ache of a heartbreak, only sorrow and pain left in its wake.
The struggle continues, solitary soldiering, destined for a peace longed for to ease a troubled mind.
I find it you know, that peace I was looking for.
But nothing is free, oh no Siree,
Especially, not peace.
Aug 21, 2018
Aug 21, 2018 at 1:18 PM UTC
This is a story from the Army Apprentices School, Arborfield, which was not far from Wokingham in Berkshire. I started my soldiering there on 15 January, 1959. It was a memorable first day because on the way there, through a window of the London to Wokingham train I saw a real, live cow and that evening, in the cookhouse, I had a pint *** smashed over my head. Anyway, this poem relates to the passage of information and the dangers of misinformation, and in a way is relative to my first day.
(While waiting for a train)
A bombardier and corporal were arguing the toss
About a job they had to do, about who should be boss.
The corporal said 'it should be me. You know the way we train.
My being in the Infantry means that I have the brain
To make sure job gets properly done, and doing it is really fun.
That being said - this job, you know, we really ought to flick it.
Would you believe they have us down to run a fire-piquet?
Replied his mate, the bombardier, 'even if it's cavalier,
I'm the one that fires off gun so I should get to have the fun.
And working the Apprentice School appears to me to be quite cool.
These AT's., they know their stuff, and work they'd never think to cuff.
Why, one even told my daughter, ‘on fire you never use hot water.'
Perplexed, his mate then asked 'why not, use h2o when it is hot?'
'Stands to reason' said his mate (they stood at Railway Station),
'Hot water on a burning fire just ups the conflagration'.
The two both spent that weekend off at home and in the yard.
Concluding individually the task was just too hard.
And so, selectively, they chose (so soon as they got back)
To do the work at Arborfield a smartly dressed lance-jack.
A Fusileer with bright cockade, four GEC's and bright
(though he said he'd had to give up two for getting in a fight).
He drilled the boys of Arborfield exactly as he orter
Whilst urging them to 'never, ever, ever use hot water'.
Mar 9, 2019
Mar 9, 2019 at 7:31 PM UTC
Different places seem the same
And once your down you can't quite explain it, like a fading dream
You're in and then out to preach
To muddle through an imperial speech
Walk unashamed
You play the game
Until the castles breeched
Soldiering on through the blind war with all weather shades and a score to settle.
The air tastes funny yet I ain't laughing
Incensed
What shakes you, resonance
What makes you, persistence
Rainbows but not a drop of rain there she goes again and again
Case it and flash a zippo at your homework inscribed with S.T.U
Time and again the disposable friends recycle themselves degrade
You shook me all night long and as I begin to shake back
Your dust drops
I'm unemployable
Unmistakable
Unthinkable
Undeniable
Untenable
And often incredible
But impossibly unlovable
Love
For no other reason
Like a movement
By the hand
Of a spectacular
Like you did
Cos you could
And you meant it.
Stay away it's just a game we play
Holding you to ransom trying to take a swipe
At fame.
Heavy heads drag heavy legs slowly scraping by
Propped up by the magical
The illusive
Dollar sign.
Holy **** I knew it something's very very wrong.
No matter what we cannot simply play along.
Changing shape from place to place
On the edge of something real
Slowly realising you're running on a wheel.
Feb 13, 2015
Feb 13, 2015 at 1:54 PM UTC
Somewhere along my journey
to the highs and the lows,
I lost the ability to fear
the scary and the unsure—
this is me, soldiering on.
Oct 11, 2017
Oct 11, 2017 at 1:18 PM UTC
Such impoverish yet lavish taste
Ulterior, does it matter to oneself?
Needless to say, life shall haste
Need say more for a life that sits on a shelf
Yearn a bite for a tarnished side
Soldiering to perfection, time shall be the judge
In a body still standing yet a heart that has died
Death's faceless encounter leaves no else than a smudge
Eggs cooked sweet; baked salty
Unraveled embellishments throughout
Persist a taste with utmost quality
Sep 6, 2014
Sep 6, 2014 at 12:48 AM UTC
Every now and then, she pays him a reality check.
Under normal circumstances, he would have tried to correct.
He would have made himself scarce,
discreet,
and regret,
ever soldiering this together,
all a vain attempt.
Cold and calculating,
just a minor defect.
Simple and straight,
she starves trust to death.
Lonely roads, the sun's heat,
she dreads.
Despite this fear,
she never lets it hover,
the shade of a friend.
His ego,
melted and reassembled like candle wax.
ivy's scent caught him in a web.
The blind man has a menial,
a very unimportant niche.
Cash the reality cheque,
before it bounces right back.
May 2, 2013
May 2, 2013 at 5:59 AM UTC
The air was crisp and faintly green
The wind was light, the scene serene.
I gazed upon a sprawling field,
As viridescent waves revealed
A lone black cat, soldiering on.
His eyes as verdant as the lawn.
He strode with purpose, without pause.
He writes his tale with the path he draws.
Black dagger, shimmering bright,
Piercing the grass, a shard of night.
Where was he going with such haste?
What delights of life would he taste?
It did not matter to him nor I,
But he knew a freedom that could not die.
I daydream often of that field,
And of the life that it might yield.
To trot assuredly through lush domain,
The burden of choice all that remains.
To feel the wind upon one’s face,
The grass and sun, a warm embrace.
The black cat’s life proffers this wisdom,
The path is forward that leads to freedom.
Jun 20, 2018
Jun 20, 2018 at 6:30 PM UTC
The jingle of my chimes brings comfort in the wind
caressing my mortal face and soothing everything
a tranquility in the noise of rusting bells of metal
a tingling sense of solace allowing stress to settle
A ray of summer sunshine bounces off one bell
sparkles in my eye and time begins to gel
the pace of life slowly soldiering on
my feet as light as air elevated to the sun
Cascading melodic tinkling continues to play
my mind is now drifting to all our yesterdays
no time then to indulge the sounds of tinkling bells
or lie and contemplate a rhyme from the well
In my twilight years I listen to every sound
nature's every word is suddenly very loud
appreciating land, sea, sun and moon lit skies
memories and experiences indelibly immortalise
Jul 4, 2015
Jul 4, 2015 at 5:43 PM UTC
in cold crisp air,
with steaming breath
and hearts open and laid bare.
we stand and remember.
the bugle sounds,
carry across the river
to meet the rising sun.
then it is quiet again.
we stand and remember
in tearful, grateful silence,
we stand and give honour
to, too many young men
who went a soldiering,
never to come home again.
we stand and remember
and in the rows before us,
old men they soldier on,
standing to attention
remembering wars long gone
and mates and foes and battlfields
and letters come from home.
faces resolute, set to the sun
as the bugle calls.. the last post,
remembering remembering
the wars that are long gone...
we stand and remember.
poppies, lie in drifts of red
in the air the scent
of pine trees and rosemary....
wreaths of hard fought grace,
lay placed with grateful thanks
below the names enscribed
upon the cenotaph's granite plane.
we stand and remember
the sun comes up,
with gentle, golden face
upon this special, sacred place.
we stand shrouded by memory
of those who fought and fell
and lie in a far distant place.
we stand and remember.
we will remember them....
lest we forget....
Apr 24, 2015
Apr 24, 2015 at 6:44 PM UTC
We will all soldier on because that's how we're made
one more commando
one more daylight raid and we soldier on.
Long after we're gone and the archaeologists move in to dig up our lives and try to begin and understand the way that we ticked
the way we picked fights,the wounds that we licked,
I'll be in somebody's sights as they examine my bones,searching for clues,considering how I had lived so, with a body abused and wondering if time had it all his own way or did I have some say in the way that I lived and the way that I died.
In the glass cabinets of museums the people will peer at me and what will they see but an old bag of bones covered in rags, a bolognese of a man all knotted then cleaned up and slotted,pigeon holed, allotted my own private page which reads,
'this is a man from the second dark age'
and in years to pass when the glass cracks with the weight of the history inside it
I'll step outside it and continue my soldiering on.
But we'll all make the raid until we're finally laid
at rest,
waiting for the semaphore,the telegram,the history man marches on.
Jul 21, 2014
Jul 21, 2014 at 11:13 PM UTC
My Last Desire
I served my country as a of Lord
For innumerable years as my sacred duty
In every pain there was a pleasure
Which kept me with a great solidarity
After such a long service I bit farewell to arms
But still i cherished every moment of love
A soldier remains in chains with military norms
Being chosen for the duty all from above
But still my last desire is to lay my life
On footprints of my homeland
I still keep my soldiering on a sharp knife
to remain same frequency and band
let me openly declare my hidden desire
So every moment to be retire
Still my love has some passionate fire
To continuously struggle to fulfill to aspire desire
Colonel Muhammad Khalid Khan
Copyright Feb 2022 Love Remains
Feb 22, 2022
Feb 22, 2022 at 11:08 AM UTC
I try so hard,
Tirelessly,
Day after day,
Night after night,
Soldiering on,
From Light to Dark,
and Dark to Light,
But God,
Why make it so hard?
So hard for me to succeed,
One mistake,
And again,
It may be all gone again.
Dear God,
Please,
I do not have much time left,
Grant me some grace,
And lend me some leeway,
Let me learn,
And grow,
Hit me with the rod, if you really must,
But please,
Don't **** me,
Don't **** my dreams,
Please, Don't take everything away.
If you really love me,
Why make it so hard?
I am in pain, can you not see?
Or am I not destined,
To carry out your plans this way.
Help me God,
Please allow my dreams to come true,
Your loyal servant.
Sep 22, 2017
Sep 22, 2017 at 5:35 AM UTC
False pride digs deep
is difficult to excise
maybe it would
have made a man of me
soldiering
Apr 24, 2014
Apr 24, 2014 at 5:43 PM UTC
Wishing Peace and Love
And freedom from fear
Hope and Happiness
In the New Year
To our mothers and brothers
Over the seas
May their lives be full
And free from disease
May nobody live
Under a thumb
May the planes return to
The place they came from
May all of those Drones,
Fly back to their homes
May the guns rust
And be covered in dust
May all of the sermons
And soldiering stop
May we tend to our families
And to our crops
The horizon will bring
A Rising dawn
And the curtain, on war
Will be drawn
Wishing Peace and love
And freedom from fear
Hope and Happiness
In the New Year
Oct 31, 2016
Oct 31, 2016 at 3:59 AM UTC
we were like two out of round wheels, on a three wheeled death machine,
we wobbled through our teens years, you with a record collection,
me with my military zeal, and the cadet life appealed to me,
you went to Washington State University
I joined the Canadian Armed Forces
We would cross paths not swords, from time to time, which no longer go slowly
We would say with words, but seldom heard what the other had said, eh?
The canyons of time has a sense of humour, and a better sense of live long and get grey hair,
the distance between us after three point six decades is less than twenty minutes by car
yeah, we connect on the usual social media, and we laugh, we cry, we like each others status
the wharf our boats bob at is like an aged lattice work and no cost for the mooring rights, it is gratis
glad you are doing well, you still have that bite in your words when you type
and your record collection is the largest and is well worth the hype
but the times and what we had may never be the same as the past,
I am no longer soldiering and you still are a friend, once for all and at last.
Sep 5, 2013
Sep 5, 2013 at 1:25 AM UTC
to Martina - with love.
your tiny feet hang over
the modest tapestry.
you assault the morning -
my own, rueful morning
with the harangue of your
viridian kisses.
in stolid nights like this, Martina, the bowl of the sky
bawls in silent ruin.
distant roars of flightless
voices fracture the night
your dandelion smile gone
from your primrose mouth - Martina,
full moon, incendiary star,
in a slew of love and vertiginous
height you danced sprightlier
than any hapless dream soldiering on in the tight solder of the threadbare midnight. Martina - you had us trembling before, and now again, as you dash with your superlative shade that fleets,
i wake in ruinous mornings.
Sep 15, 2015
Sep 15, 2015 at 12:50 AM UTC