Bugler and player of bagpipes
Continue. Stretching out
That now breathed to more than a stout
Minutes' honouration.
Soonest war, its great wound
Closes, opens again.
With no respite to the realm's pain.
Nor your own! Death appoints
By tomb, blue-faced, with sound annoints
To stand at attention.
I think of those who left their home.' To fight on battlefields
Unknown.' In mud and blight against Gallipolis heights
At Beer Sheba and on Tobruks deadly plains.' Where they
Lay low; and let those tanks, roll over them front and flanks'
Then arose to put to shame.their foe' These Men
Of the the flats..Of wheatfields and cane.' From harbours
And citys made forever a name.' Reknown for igenuity for
Resilience wordwide.' Steadfast our bronzed battlers who
Took all in stride.' As the bugle notes ring out today in the
Dawn.' I remember.. I remember.' In gratitude mixed with awe.! So today as i face the struggles that come I shall
Draw strength, and inspiration at the rising of each sun.'
And it will remind me.' That whatever is to come? the
ANZAC spirit is my mentor, i vow to hold it to my memory all
My days on earth, until my final hours beneath the setting sun'
I was thinking of the last Dawn Service I took my mother to at the War Memorial on North Terrace, Adelaide…. Lest we Forget
ANZAC in Australia
A sparkling morning on dewy ground
A crowd of people gathering round
The dawn brings light to Damocles held on high
A military band playing drifting towards the sky
Relics of past battles displayed
A solemn morning in Remembrance made
Coloured ribbons on chests held proud
A gentle tear is felt and always allowed
There was a morning so long ago
Of troops landing in a fatal show
We will remember each one who has passed
A Communion together that will last
For as old soldiers fade away
There are always others in whose place they stay
For Rosemary is worn by us all
To remember ANZAC sacrifice standing tall.
© Paul Warren Poetry
For my Grandfather, Australian 9th Light Horse.
He died
when I was just emerging
from the unremembered,
he left
with the sound
of muffled sobs
coming from
his room.
My Grandfather lived
in yellowed photographs
and the torn patches
of fabric souvenired
from a downed
Turkish biplane.
His sword
was too heavy
for a child to lift.
On each Anzac Day
I would open
a battered biscuit tin
to count his medals
and the broken teeth
on an old
set of dentures.
As a child, I worried
that he had gone
to heaven
without his teeth.
Note.
ANZAC refers to Australian and New Zealand
Army Corps, specifically to soldiers serving
1914 - 1918. ANZAC Day is a day of remembrance
for all those who gave their lives in service and for those who served in defense of the Nation in all wars. ANZAC Day
is held on the 25th April in both Australia and New Zealand.
We hear the stories quite clears
Of ANZACs and their families quite dear
As we will remember each one
And the deeds that cannot be undone
They march on into history now
Thousands marching in lines unbowed
For country and for fallen mates
As each no doubt contemplating their fate
What memories are left of them to find
There’s Longstaff’s Menin Gate at Midnight painting devine
Or poppies blowing red on Flanders Fields
And Ware’s cities of the dead on ground unyielded
April 25 each year as our remembrance comes
They march on again as one
And a haunting melancholia grasps me
Of new conflicts and sacrifice you see.
© Paul Warren Poetry
What did the Turks do at ANZAC
When the Diggers left not looking back
Did they wander through the trenches and dugouts
Wondering in the end what was it all about
Did they taste the treats left behind for them
And thanked their God that it did end
Was there whispering on the wind so clear
By the Fallen Diggers as the spoke near their graves so dear
And when they finally left to go to their homes
Did they ponder on these unknowns
When sacrifices were made in the terrible fight
Did they think that it had put them in the right.
© Paul Warren Poetry
The Spirit soars above the earth
As silence now pervades its girth
Each battlefield has spat its hate
Broken earth and lives given up to hate
And the Spirit now collects their souls
Each gently taken as bugles roll
For those we loved have gone on now
As time and life passes as God allows
But the Spirit remains to guide us on
To keep the faith in a never ending song
For righteous truth will triumph still
Against oppression as the Spirit wills
We hope for an end to all war we sought
To stand in defence of ourselves is a peace they bought
Our against the oppressor’s sword
Is the Spirit’s legacy that can’t be ignored.
© Paul Warren Poetry
The red glow of sunrise paints the sky
Families gather as candle light flickers nearby
The ANZAC Service echoes from place to place
This year’s Dawn Service shared in sad grace
The virus has its say on us everyday
Whilst social distancing is our way
Driveway services weaving us together
As the Last Post plays in their memory forever.
© Paul Warren Poetry
The darkness hides their faces
As the rising sun embraces
And the kookaburras have their say
Announcing the dawn in their Australian way
The stone soldier is their catafalque party standing still
The people are quiet standing as their will
The Minister starts with a prayer
Heralding their sacrifice in battles so far from there
The soldier raises the bugle to his face
And the last post echoes from place to place
Some tears sparkle on their cheeks
As the Lord’s Prayer makes the service complete.
© Paul Warren Poetry
I wonder and admire those people true
Who answered the bugle’s call those years through
For they were volunteers one and all
And how did they stay the distance in the call
A hundred years have passed
Where great change has been amassed
They were different to each one of us
And were known to make less of a fuss
The Great War changed the world
Where great empires were lost and felled
And what is left is from those years
Lest we forget as we shed our tears
© Paul Warren Poetry
All the Anzacs have faded back into the past
And the old men now rest with their mates
We can hope they play 2 up and still have a beer
Now they’ve entered the heavenly gates
We have cause to remember the men who died young
How they fought to ensure we live free
How they looked back at home for the very last time
As their ships pulled away from the quay
They went for adventure, for country and King
Their country still mourns for their loss
They died in the trenches and on the barbed wire
So far from the great Southern Cross
They couldn’t have known as they sailed far from home
Just how cruel would be some of their fates
But they lived for Australia, a land of their own
And they died for the sake of their mates
And each life extinguished still burned like a flame
In the hearts of their loved ones at home
And their memory lives on in the pride of the nation
In respect for the flag that they’d flown
Their young eyes look out from the passage of years
From the old pictures, tattered and torn
And their nation looks back to the past and remembers
How the legend of ANZAC was born
From my PDF book "Bush Ballads and Bulldust"
Tyne Cot War Cemetery
White head stones in countless rows
Soldiers all from the Great War battles
Thousands dead now glory served
Each one a son and loved one
Victoria Cross engraved as heroes found
Known unto God a sad refrain written
On the stone “Their name liveth for Evermore”
A Christian Cross on top of a German pill-box
Sacrifice for the “War to End Wars” unfulfilled
A hundred years past but still it begs belief.
© Paul Warren Poetry
We are the ones
Who inherited their sun
To live in peace together
For we are all tethered
To the Legends true blue
Souls with mates who stood true
And when the stories are told
Of these ones who were bold
Those are the brave ones
Who stood when the day needed to be won
And I am proud
To say it out loud
We are sons and daughters of ANZAC
Pride in their Legends as fact.
© Paul Warren Poetry
ANZAC Girls
Nobody asked her to go
No one told her to go
She saw the suffering
Of thousands of young men
Australian and Kiwi
They fought together in the trenches
And she was there waiting to care for them
Most lived once they came to her
But some died before her eyes
Even with that she never wavered
She never begged to go home
Her job was to save every boy she saw
And she did her job beyond all expectations
She was a heroine of World War 1
She was an ANZAC nurse
And she will always be remembered
Gallipoli
by Robert J (Bob) Moore
They came together across the sea,
to this place they called Gallipoli
all walks of life, class and creed,
all they knew, there was a need
From far and near, they heard the call,
did not know, so many would fall
they knew a job needed to be done,
and they would do it, each mothers son
For many it was a chance to roam,
did not think some, would not come home
they’d see the world, and make their name
and as a hero, come home again
That April morn was cold and grey,
the enemy did not run away
he stayed to fight for his homeland,
and to the last man, make his stand
Friends were falling as the bullets flew,
have to keep moving, nothing more I can do
find some shelter, then look around
but nowhere to hide, on this cold ground
So now it ends, so far away
from home, and friends, and normal day
I wonder in future, the years to come
will they think of us, and what we have done
Lest We Forget
Sub Categories
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.