This was once a sea of mud
Where thousands bled!
Before it reverted to!
A field of Flanders Poppy Red.
Do lines of ghostly squaddies!
Plough through ethereal mire!
In an endless quest to!
Charge the enemy barbed wire.
Do Mill Bombs explode!
As machine guns bark!
Sending many of the brave!
Into death's final dark.
How many bodies sank
Into that glutinous paste
Just futile victims of
A futile war's waste.
Do those shades fight bravely
Or do they fight with despair
Knowing it was sheer folly
That they were ever there.
The Flanders Poppy thrives
It's vivid scarlet red
An enduring tribute to those
Many brave but wasted dead.
And the massed white tombstones
In their precise lines and ranks
Are tended with love and care
In sincere but inadequate thanks
17 October 1916 the Battle of The Somme enterd its 109th day and had 32 more to run. It lasted 141 day in total. It saw the first use of the tank in battle, and extensive use of air power.
Casualties: British and Empire: 420,000, French: 200,000, German: between 434,000 and 500,000.
It was classed as “inconclusive.”
100 Years On I feel like crying/
Waving poppies, ruffled by the summer breeze, look up
At the deep sky and warm sun, pillows of clouds gentle
Contrast to the green below and the scattered red faces
With soul black eyes. Children’s voices ring like distant bells,
The sounds of happiness and the pleasures of life, undisturbed
By thoughts of harm.
But the flowers of the forest have no arching sky above
Only cold shadows and pools of dark water, with wriggling
Worms the only life. No laughing children lift the heart
And bring a happy smile, the distant bells a sombre cadence
That tolls for thee. No bright poppies shine in this decaying
World, only their soul black eyes.
And the lone piper plays his sad lament for
The Flowers of the Forest.
THE KISS
While words are lost in the silence of our emotions,
One it seems also oblivious of worldly dilemmas,
The power of your affections in this your wondrous kiss.
BATTLE OF THE SOMME
1916
When unable to touch in this a far off distant land,
Confronting a faceless enemy, whom I’m sure longs as I do,
Lives for the day when passions are released within a kiss.
© Harry J Horsman 2012
On this cold winter night
A horror unfurls
As they leave their trenches
Under the Bagpipes skirl
It's Christmas Eve
In World War One
Over the top they leave
The killing has begun
Knee deep in mud
Barbed wire and bodies
The piper laments
Their bravery embodied
To march into battle
With their weapon of pipes
Whilst bullets and bombs
Leave the theatre in strife
Onward they march
Turning men into hero's
The battle of the Somme
Last centuries ground zero
What makes such a man
To enter a war
His weapon of music
That they follow him for
Amongst the men that fall
Others pick up their guns
When the piper falls
Their is no one
On this cold Christmas Day
The horrors have been unfurled
As one looks over the trenches
To a different world
But the very next day
In the distance you will hear
The sound of the Scottish Bagpipes
Leaving their enemy in fear
In memory to all who fell at Christmas time, and especially to the pipers
who used music as their weapon, we will remember them, as all will be remembered
http://www.thehighlanderspoems.com/war-5.php
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