In 1917 the British and Commonwealth forces attacked
In the Ypres Salient in the corner of Belgium they hacked
Through the Third Battle of Ypres that had been raging away
With the battlefield turning to endless mud that would stay
As the rain fell at Poelkapelle at the Sherwood Foresters line
Was just holding on and waiting to be relieved at their time
In the mess that was the trench line a giant jumped in
And the Forester was startled in all of the battle din
He said, 'Who the hell are you? ' As the conversation begun
The giant replied, 'We're the Aussies to relieve you chum! '
The Forester said, 'I can't give you food, ammunition or keep the rain off'
The Aussie said, 'Never mind that, we don't need it, just bugger off.'
So the Foresters left the trench and started the journey back
Through the flooded battlefield and water filled shell holes in a hack
And they lost as many men drowned the slush and mud fields
As the Passchendaele battle continued the murder and bodies yield.
© Paul Warren Poetry
Categories:
battle of ypres, rainbow, remember, world war
Form: Ballad
100 years ago at Passchendaele this day,
Young men prayed their fear would go away.
They waited, knee deep in mud, in trenches,
For the whistle to sound amid their defences.
They prayed for courage that very night,
The very next day they faced Germany's might.
The Third Battle of Ypres was about to start,
Another bloody conflict to save Europe's, heart.
Men screamed and died in fields of mud,
Turned into a quagmire of their comrade's blood.
Wave after wave they came, the enemy engaged.
For more than three months the battle raged,
A whole generation died in that accursed field,
Before the enemy began to weaken and yield.
So many young men from home and abroad,
At Passchendaele died to break the enemies sword.
War is an evil, something we must all bewail.
To depose the tyrants for Peace to prevail
Passchendaele 31 July 1917- Nov 10, 1917
Lest we forget.
© Dave Timperley 30 July 2017
Categories:
battle of ypres, world war i,
Form: Elegy
Even the dead reject this blasted earth.
The ground, such as it is,
Is freshly Antidiluvean,
The corpses swim within its tumbled, heaving masses
Blood and mud the mortar
Holding the chaos together.
The sun is weak,
Ashamed to break the haze
To bring to light the obscenities transpiring here.
The whistles blow
The troglodytes emerge
From their respective holes,
Staggering towards one another
Through watery craters
Over the mincemeat of comrades
To add themselves to the swimming sacrifice
Constantly on offer
To the insatiable, sole diety of this place,
The Mud-God, Futility.
They are men no more,
Those who struggle 'neath
The leaden skies
The wan sun
Of the sodden moonscape
That is Passchendale.
They are only raging beasts
Trading pain for pain,
All trace of cause or reason
Lost in the maelstrom of their collective misery -
The only escape
Is to slay and to be slain;
To join the bitter shades
Ascending with the fog and smoke
Through the wall of cloud above,
To vanish into the icy deeps
Among the far, impassive stars.
Categories:
battle of ypres, death, fear, history, places,
Form: Free verse