Best Anzac Poems
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"
ANZAC
Few among them knew the name Gallipolli
no crystal ball foretold the hell it spawned
but in the misty dawn of 25-04-15
the legend of the ANZACs would be born.
standing tall in khaki pride
he held his wife and newborn son
don’t worry love be back real soon
we’re gonna make them jerries run
the women waved tear streaked farewells
from wharves as troop ships steamed away
and crossed horizons far from home
to face the trials of unknown day
excitement written in their smiles
proud and brave and some so young
they sang ‘Australia Will be There’
and to the winds their voices flung
no notion no suspicion
of the fate their journey faced
as on that fear filled morning
into fiery hell they paced
and in that violent misty dawn
sixteen thousand heroic hearts
stormed a friendless beachfront
for king and country do their part
their bravery knew no backward step
as lacking grit to see it through
would be to turn their back on mates
and no such thought would they pursue
for eight long mud and blood filled months
they dug their trenches fought their fight
and dreamt sweet dreams of those at home
morning noon and haunted night
the mettle of each beating heart
for eight long months was tested
too many souls would not return
by the time the guns were rested
so far beyond imaginings
that nightmare task was set
sixty thousand heroes
“Lest We Forget’
Few among them knew the name Gallipolli
no crystal ball foretold the hell it spawned
but in the misty dawn of 25-04-15
the legend of the ANZACs would be born.
It's Anzac Day today
Or lads were sent away
To fight a war
And what the hell for
Because they had to pay
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
As we commemorate this Anzac Day,
We shall remember them this way,
Forever asleep, young and brave,
Heroes now resting in foreign graves,
We thank them for our freedom today,
Forever asleep, always young and brave.
Old soldiers in the firing line,
Community clubbing time,
Let's honour them in rhymes,
Now in the vault of the unleashed,
Their courage released,
For the job, they were the right men,
The flower of past generations,
People to treasure, through the ages,
In theatres of combat, such stages,
Designer beers wanted here,
On Anzac Day, we give them silent cheers.
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
They were straight of limb as the bullets flew
Made up of true blues and fair dinkums too
When they landed on that bloody April day
They were told to push inland to ensure the stay
The fighting was fierce and brave men fell
Australian, New Zealander and Turk in the hell
The bravest men fought the hardest fight
And went inland further than others might
They fought and they died showing they had pluck
The Turks told of wounded men not giving up
Struggling it out to the last bullet they fought
And were left lying facing the foe as they ought
In the end when they evacuated ANZAC Cove Beach
With those brave men lying in the sun out of reach
The Turks left them as the sun bleached their bones white
As the days turned into months into years as we won the fight
In 1919 Charles Bean led the Australians back to Gallipoli
And they searched the battlefield from beach to the gullies carefully
The bones were gathered and were identified for some
As the graves were lined up and headstones stand in the sun
These men who came from across the world for a war
Are now part of the Legend of ANZAC for all to explore
But I wonder on those windy hills where they stayed and didn't flee
There are young Australians looking out quietly to the sea.
© Paul Warren Poetry
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
“Anzac Day, it happened this way”.
I remember her now, every Anzac Day,
a sacred day I cannot. celebrate.
She was his wife, only seventeen.
He was just 19, their lives had just begun,
She jumped into his grave,
She kept screaming out his name,
She hugged his coffin and wouldn’t let go,
They pulled her out, screaming in pain.
She screamed, I’ll love you…forever.
As we pulled the trigger and fired, time and again.
She jumped into his grave, screaming out his name,
She hugged his coffin and wouldn’t let go,
They pulled her off his coffin, screaming in pain.
She screamed, I’ll love you…forever, I’ll never let go.
As we pulled the trigger, and fired time again.
He died in agony, blood, guts, gore.
He died for politicians’ egos, and lies, he
died in agony, in pain, screaming,
begging Jesus, and calling her name.
I've lost my religion, a religion called war.
The Army gave him a number,
and took away his name.
The padre spoke the eulogy.
I baptized him, I married him. Now, I must bury him.
I cannot imagine her pain.
But we all loved Jesus?
as we loaded our rifles, and it started to rain.
and fired into the air, time and time again.
she screamed in terror and cried out in pain.
I'm such an ******* I can’t remember his name.
After the service, the mourners had gone.
But still,
She laid on his grave digging away, screaming,
I’ll love you…forever, I’ll never let go.
• This is non-fiction it happened that way.
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
It began as a day like any other,
In the oceans deepest depths,
Until a Kiwi and an Ausi,
Decided to have a picnic at the bottom of the Ocean,
In the deepest part of the Mariana Trench.
They arrived with both flags flying,
Inside the only submersible of its kind,
Nick named The Limiting Factor.
A toast to Sir Edmond they said,
We knocked this bugger off,
And reached two kilometres deeper than
He went higher.
I think we have done enough for an Anzac Biscuit,
And a Vegemite Sandwich,
Even if the rest of the world thinks us nuts,
And can't understand how the two of us,
As different as chalk and cheese,
Can occupy such a small space,
At the same time,
And both come back alive to tell the tale.
Maybe there is a lesson there,
For those who don't know,
How to occupy the same house,
Little own a single room together,
With someone who talks different,
Looks different,
Smells different,
And wears s a different hat.
Of course we do have the advantage of,
Having the supply of,
Anzac Biscuits and Vegemite Sandwiches,
Pretty much sown up
https://www.stuff.co.nz/science/124823189/historymaking-109km-anzac-dive-to-the-bottom-of-the-mariana-trench
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
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
Anzac Day 2020
By Jan Beaumont ©
As Anzac Day draws nearer and there's not so many left
Of those bright eyed boys who left their native shores
They were SO young, so hopeful of a life that promised much
But they went to fight for freedom, mine and yours.
They left behind their families and so many tears were shed
By their mothers, fathers, aunties, sisters, wives
They never knew the horrors of the things that lay ahead
But willingly they fought and gave their lives.
The ones who came back home to us could often not share stories
Of the things they'd seen, those things they couldn't tell
They quietly returned and tried to go on with their lives
Trying to forget they'd been through hell.
As life went on the years went by and they were getting old
They'd meet each year to talk and reminisce
And then they slowly left us, slipped away without a word
And we lost them, dearly loved and greatly missed.
Each Anzac Day there's fewer now of these courageous men
Those once young boys are bent and frail and worn
Do not forget the lives we have today we owe to them,
Remember well this coming Anzac morn.
Our loved ones, we salute you, we will hold you in our hearts
You've done us proud, you're heroes, truly great
We thank you for your sacrifice, you most beloved men
And say another heartfelt 'Well done, mate!"