Best Mortars Poems
An earthen gray memorial stands alone against
A rugged desert landscape, built by the mortal
Hands of the faithful.
No bells do ring, in the churches steeple, but in the
Heart of Texas it's sounding message can never
Be silenced, remember the Alamo.
For the fighting men of valor's honors sacrificed,
All for liberation's call to freedom.
Listen to their whispering voices, traveling
Across the tangle weed dunes, and harken unto
Them, never to surrender even after death, do
They fight for country, hearth, and home.
These pioneer men whom built this nation's
Backbone, carved it out, with steeled bowie knife
Sharpened edge, and musket balls powder's flash.
Gathered here, for one last hurrah’s gallant stand off,
To the victor's gaining everlasting immortality.
Gallantry’s brave, shed their dearest blood, sacrificing
Giving everything they had, including life itself.
Cannon thunder bolts roar, as lightening rods raw force
Striking against mortars harden walls, yet the
Spirits of bravery strong, did not yield, or raise
The white shield of surrender.
Keep thy black powder dry, lift your rifles high,
But don't fire men, until you see the whites of
Your enemies eyes.
Under the hailing of gunfire’s smoke, did hells
Storm rage, both sides dying for their country's
Beliefs right or wrong.
Death's battlefield littered with fragments deceased,
A graveyard left unattended, wars unfortunate
Fallen, became salvation’s tribute to behold, in the distance
A tattered flag, still waves in the winds of freedom.
Bricks of defense, shattered as if made of glass,
Debris spewing outwards, towards martyred legacy's
Champions, killing many before they hit the ground,
Receiving remains of the valiant dead.
Oh in the heaven's trumpets did herald, these
Courageous souls, welcoming honored soldiers, home wards
Unto God's boundless country, for these explorers
To discover the horizon's endless divides beyond.
Prisoners living, taken by horse and rider were forced
To bow, beneath a foreign banners alien flag.
Yet even than their American hearts didn't waiver,
Until the swords steel severed life, from the fleshes beating
Drumming from within.
But the last warrior yelled a rebels battle cry,
And as he fell with his last dying breath,
Yelled out,
Remember the Alamo!!
BY: CHERYL ANNA DUNN
Categories:
mortars, america, history, imagery, imagination,
Form:
Free verse
New Guinea Kokoda Campaign
In 1942 the Japs appeared, took all the islands north.
Our troops were mainly school boys and for New Guinea bound.
13,000 Japs landed, climbed up Kokoda and came forth.
As Yanks, Macarthur's boys took over Melbourne town.
Churchill said "No we can't help, let them take Australia too,
we'll take it back later in a few years."
Our P.M. got most of our men home, to fight our war it's true,
Though Churchill tried every trick but tears.
The Thirty Ninth Battalion, old men and school boys.
400 kids to do the job, oh yes these few.
They met the Jap whose weapons, were anything but toys.
Militia boys, with old 'threeo's' there to use.
Our boys could only hit and run.
Or be surrounded and slaughtered like the roo's.
The Jap he had it all, mortars, machine and mountain gun.
New Guinea we could more than likely lose.
War seasoned 2/21st Brigade it's then they climbed the trail.
Came to meet the Jap so many thousands there.
They tried to stop em, many died, but no they wouldn't fail.
These men so game and earnest every where.
Battle hardened 2/25th Brigade now came to do its bit.
Replaced the dead and wounded, and the few left on the trail.
Our men charged the Jap trenches as the 25 pounders hit,
used cold steel, Yank Tommy guns and leaden hail.
The Jap ran back o'er the ranges with fear he was instilled,
with just three battalions snapping at his rear.
At Templeton they stopped, got surrounded there and killed.
Aussies made them pay the price, much dread and fear.
The Kumusi river was in flood, where Horii's men pulled up.
The General's men they'd stopped again to fight.
When five hundred died upon the bank they'd really had enough.
So they tried to cross the river in the night.
400 drowned there in the flood with General Horii too,
from capsized boats and rafts and other craft.
They retreated back to Gona and to Buna they were through,
their ranks so thinned, they hadn't cause to laugh.
Our Pilots flew with the Yanks, to bomb and strafe and kill.
Then our Tanks appeared with Mortar and Field gun.
With better support now, we sapped their very will.
Our mountains choked with dead now Kokoda it was won.
by D H Johnson
Categories:
mortars, adventure, school, men, old,
Form:
Ballade
I wish these were different times,
when I could write about pollen
and bee, when I could write about
silvery moons, and adventurous
pathways on uncharted romantic
sea --
But all I can write about is FREE!
I wish these were different times
when I could write of Light
and eternity -- when I could write
of my heart, of our growing brood,
the sole focus of mind, on joyfully
interacting~
totally content with treasured company
of my precious, evolving legacy, family-tree --
But all I can write about is FREE!
I'm certain Washington would have
loved to spend Christmas in front of
a cozy fireplace, with loved ones, safe
and secure, his fingers wrapped around
a mug of spicy holiday tea -- instead of
the icy trigger of a musket,
But all he could think of was FREE!
And all those who died at Normandy,
on Omaha Beach, in Okinawa on Hacksaw
Ridge -- riddled with bullets, bodies shredded
by mortars -- never again to hold their
cherished wives and children
just so those loved ones could grow
up healthy and strong
in a world FREE from Tyranny!
Categories:
mortars, christian, corruption, courage, political,
Form:
Free verse
Consciousness Correction – 11-20-23
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Consciousness Correction
Envy sneaks in unseen
A thief robbing light from my house of gratitude,
Sowing simmering anger, extinguishing thankfulness,
In blind yellowed views
Gratitude held captive,
Strangled,
Pennies of “I wish” tossed into stone cisterns
Where winter thrashes cyclconic -
Vortex of a gleeful witness to spring’s demise -
Dead-ends swell in jealous broken branches,
Wrapped in near sighted stigmatisms,
Lenses smeared in covet.
Stone citadels rise from my naked spite,
Blind to confessions of incense,
To curl into deep pools
Poisoned by tainted pools of jealousy,
Creeping to the heights of entitled grudges.
Yet nascent vines, fragrant with focal points,
Blooms of correction,
Slip between crumbling buttress mortars,
Sachets illuminate good will
In wreaths of newborn appreciation
That knows its need for candles of kindness
My thankful eyes, that walked in darkness, see
To embrace armloads of miracles come into focus
Reappearing from soot blown corners.
Scales fall in melting flakes
From my bloodshot eyes,
New sight nourished in a corrected wash -
Sweet nectar of reckoning
By a brilliant polestar of clarity magnified
Opaque about-face.
Categories:
mortars, life, light,
Form:
Free verse
At dinner, Zach asks
about our nation's history, wars.
I say We're taking on everyone, one at a time.
First Britain, then Britain again: "He was the surly English pluck, and
there is no tougher or truer, and never was, and never will be."
Next Mexico: "Death is indifferent to what hide he tans; life crushes men
like flies."
The War Between the States: "Well done, Mr. Cromartie. Time now
for rest."
Most of Latin America: "Not only humans longed for liberation. All
ecology groaned for it too. The revolution is also one of lakes,
rivers, trees, animals."
Then Southeast Asia: "The slight bump the mortars make as they kiss
the tube goodbye. Then the furious rain, a fist driving home the
message: Boy, you don't belong here."
Now the Middle East: "A land to be admired like all lands. Harsh
mountains and deserts, indigenous plants and people, adapted
ungulates, carnivorous mammals."
Can't forget the Krauts & Nips: "Then I heard the bomber call me in:
Little Friend, Little Friend, I got two engines on fire. Can you see
me, Little Friend?"
Nor the Commies: "You mixed up farewell to an epoch with the
beginning of a new one. I put this book here for you, who once
lived, so that you should visit us no more."
The original indigenous people say: "In time wexll become prosperous,
or else we'll become martyrs. The force that placed us here cannot
be trusted."
Categories:
mortars, america, death, fire, history,
Form:
Verse
Covered in the jungles evergreen thickets, beneath
Stones and mortars refuge lays an old Mayan crypt,
And on it is written an ancient curse, dare not enter
Mortal men, or forsake thy living soul, as tributes
Offering at the altar, of the Arachnid Queen.
At midnight's twilight hour, under the moon's elliptical
Shroud of illusions, is exposed isolation's
Forbidden tomb of evil.
As torches spontaneously combust, bursting forth
Into flame, slowly the grave stone rolls backwards,
Releasing the cold and damp air from within.
Emerging from her unholy tomb, this spider demon,
Inhales the crisp night air at last.
A creature is she the Arachnid Queen, of devils
Spawning between her father of darkness,
And a fallen angel of spiritual light.
Weep do the cherubs of heaven, at her birthing's ritual, for
One of their own was so sacrificed, shackled and chained,
Treated as if an animal of disdain, the Arachnid Queen,
Clawed her way forth, from her mother’s maternal womb.
As a gifts prize from the dark lord, unto his child
Born from the darker side, is the deadly touch of death itself.
To kill without mercy, with accuracy's pin point efficiency,
For she bares no heart or souls pity.
A phantom of mist is she, without definitions form, slowly
She crosses under the forest canopy, and one by one the
Veils of webbing descend, upon her from above. As her
Minion guardians do weave, each delicate sheath's covering.
Revealing a skeletal shape beneath, exposing a beast of
Monstrous proportions, behold her eight legs appendages
Of a spider.
But above is beauty personified, shimmering as a goddess
Of ebony black, with eyes the color of sea foam, and red
Flaming tresses that blow freely in the flowing breeze.
With the voice of an angel, she so sings ever sweetly,
This is the gift of her fallen mother, to entice the lustful
Hunger within all men, to devastations final end.
Waving her teasing finger at them, come hither
My love sick fellow and I'll mend your broken heart,
And so do they come, unto the Arachnid Queen.
Entering her webbing's layer, she takes her crimson
Throne of the dammed, laughing with pleasures sheer
Delight, for tonight she shall feast upon the flesh and blood,
Of living men, and revel in their screams of pain.
BY: CHERYL ANNA DUNN
Categories:
mortars, beauty, evil, fantasy, gothic,
Form:
Free verse
Blistering and scorching sands
Land of the hushed and crushed hands
Up the creepy furs clasping 'round
Ebbing scraped sand of ants' mound
Mortars of the deep and steamy skies
O'er peals and dreamy flies
Off the reef passerine of stormy glides entreat
New leaf flit, strength above my feet...
Sunsets tweak, marvels at its peak
Categories:
mortars, hope,
Form:
Imagism
BROTHERLY GRAVES
On brotherly graves wooden crosses don’t stand,
No widows weep there, mourning,
On mass graves you see only flowers and
The fire, eternally burning.
The earth here ruffled with stony waves
When mortars were ripping the planet.
There is no personal fate in these graves –
All fates merged in one under granite!
I see in the flame, that forever is lit,
A village burnt down to coals,
A tank that is flaming and there in it
I see burning soldiers’ souls!
On brotherly graves no widows weep,
And there they put no crosses …
But it doesn’t mean our grief isn’t deep
And we have forgotten the losses!
Translated by George Tokarev
© GEORGE TOKAREV 2003
Categories:
mortars, history, loss, song-
Form:
Peace is though difficult
Yet not impossible to uphold,
All the kings of the states
Must remain self-concerned,
Without poking noses
Into the affairs of others,
Curbing cupidity
To expand the territories,
Subjugate the nations of the world,
Enforce the so-called personal visions,
And put the humanity
Into new-fangled trials.
All the weapons
Latest, conventional or primitive,
Precious or utterly worthless,
Nuclear or less potential
Made of common explosives,
Be spoiled,
Be thrown into the deep waters
Of the unexplored seas,
Wherefrom no devilish character
Could ransack them back.
When some is killed
Neither Hindu, nor Muslim,
Neither Christian nor Jew is killed,
But a man: a child of Adam and Eve,
The same red substance
Pours out of his injured ragged body,
And it pains me.
All the weapon producing units,
And the blood spattering gadgets:
The tanks and cannons,
Mortars or machines guns,
The armadas
With the squadrons of fighter-jets,
Submarines that navigate
Secretly chase the nautical targets,
Catapults and all the missiles launching frames,
Be thrown into furnaces
To be remodelled and redesigned
Into of the earth moving machinery,
Instead of the appliances
Colouring the Earth red.
All the medals or symbols
Of chivalry be taken back,
Combatants and men
With the crowned shoulders,
And medalled chests,
Who often move in the battle-fields
Puffed with the martial pride,
Imparting, rendering
No service to humanity
Be employed to plough the lands,
Plant the gardens,
Make the dams and reservoirs of water,
Feed the cattle and get them milked on time,
Engaged them
To perform some rewarding assignments.
Upon the earth,
There must not be a single
Blood-claiming weapon;
If men are incensed
And fight is unavoidable,
They must fight with knives and rapiers,
Swords and shields made of gossamer,
All the time heeding
Lest they should break;
And all inhabitants of the world
At least once a day must trim their nails,
Lest when they are indignant
And resentful should scratch
The skin of fellow beings or their own.
Categories:
mortars, peaceearth, men,
Form:
Green locusts whirl and flap above,
A long way from Chicago, love.
Out here, the armor piercing dove
will make you scream for mothers' love.
Through layers of mud, I'm still alive
if life just means what I survive.
The mortars thunk, I shove and dive.
I don't think I'm--------------------------.
The World of War: Vietnam.
Gerard F. Keogh Jr.
Categories:
mortars, death, history, loss, war
Form:
Rhyme
morning breaks like a crack shot through bone
the needs are frightening that i must possess
this hunger in my womb
head out to trenches
crawling on concrete blood
tanks and diesel
mortars and pestle
clouds of promise
blind my way
the kings in control
but the ghosts
are there
and their
and they’re
in hoods of faith
to cut the cord
steal down the path of deaths holy trail
hide from satin's cape in tombs with idols they set ablaze
craters of remains hold pieces of flesh and baby’s breath
wretched with veil wrapped tight to skirmish no eyes
reaching sanctuary for my supply
around and around
to face it again
and again
and
again
past bloody sheets
car parts for limbs
sparkplug fingers
transmission torsos
naked in hells kitchen
i die for
daily bread
today life goes
and goes
not
within me
and
without me
down a
baghdad
death
row
Categories:
mortars, courage, death, war,
Form:
Free verse
how come the global globe of globalization
shine dull and bright in swing of geographical discrimination?
why do some share gains, count millions of profit
while others whine, wail and wane in forfeit and surfiet?
why are some roads a thoroughfare
and others cul de sac affair?
why can you buy so so freely, and sell at will
but many buy very very hard, and hardly can sell?
what kind of game is it
where one player is a spectator of sort
and another a referee and competing player?
why do some bear
full portion of pandemics and perdition
while some share larger of limited portion
of all sum of the earth's fortune?
why do you take their gold for a token
and sell them 'chains' of thousand dollars?
why take their diamond and oil for mortars
and bullets that mix their cold blood with brown sands?
why give them a crust of the funds
from wealth, 'UNcommon' which their hands, callused
by centuries of unpaid hard labour, gathered?
Why? Why? big brother! ! ! why?
Categories:
mortars, angst, introspection, life, people,
Form:
Free verse
The old house stands still.
Rot has set in.
A flying termite caught in the webs of a dead spider, sway to the shrill of a ceiling fan.
All things sway.
Dreams rise and suffocate in the mouldering mortars
Falling on the adjacent tiled roof.
They scream, laugh, make love, declare the infiniteness
Of their finite existence through diatribes of reality and unreality.
They are passionate bunch,
Bound by their common desire to be. And blood.
And the house just is. It still is.
Once there were sparrows in the ventilators.
And envious swallows on the palm trees.
The ripples in the pond sing their dark, merry tunes
Licking away its edges,
And they shove and trample for the whiff of north wind.
Life persists in slow, lonely decadence.
The cactus on the roof thrives in monsoon and in summer.
Basil live and die, live and die trenched in the never ending circle
Of micro-civilisation.
The house harvests its own sustenance in the whispers among its bricks
That become a collective
And a roar is heard.
They pray to Earth.
The old house is defiant,
The old house is tired.
Its melting skin sizzles and stinks of industry of old,
A glorious past always in the distant like the horizon,
The promise of bright future exposed to the misery
That is naturalness of time.
The hammer rusted, weed has grown over,
They clinch onto the sickle, like oxygen.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Form: Free Verse
Date: 02 / 11 / 2016
Growing up in a state of the country where all the magnificence is limited to either history books or fictional literature, one hopes for something more. This is definitely a political reflection than anything else, but 'the house' is not just a metaphor, it does exist, and so do the people living in it.
Categories:
mortars, allegory, corruption, culture, home,
Form:
Free verse
This morning in Aleppo
Was bloodshed
Gunshots, RPGs,
Bomb blast
Like the achaba suicide bomber
Of Kaduna
A little boy I Syria is running
To escape the shrapnel of
The shooter’s shells and mortars
A disillusioned almajiri is planting
Local explosives in a church
Somewhere in Borno.
My bedroom receives
Fresh percolation of sun rays
Early morning sun rays
It reminds me
How we used to sing do re mi
A female deer
A drop of golden sun
A name I call myself.
But where have they all gone?
The songs
Where have they gone?
Categories:
mortars, war, morning, sun,
Form:
Blank verse
From August 1914 to November 1918 the guns boomed
There were 700 million shells fired for soldiers doomed
And not every shell exploded when it was fired then
Each year they kill more than 20 innocent women and men
And the special unit of the French Army of detmineurs
Have lost 630 men in disarming shells, grenades and mortars
In the Great War for Germany it meant 35% of men aged 19-22 years
Were dead in the fighting that in the end were only family tears
For the British Commonwealth 12% of all soldiers who fought
Were dead by Armistice Day when the survivors were sought
And 31% of the 1913 Oxford graduates didn't survive
As officers were targeted in the attacking drive
And for France 50% of men 20 to 32 years were gone
Which meant that when the Second World War was on
They were stuck for manpower when the Germans attacked
The Great War left its detritus for generations exacted
And today what occurred a hundred years before now
Will colour our world and for which we will continue to bow.
© Paul Warren Poetry
Categories:
mortars, death, world war i,
Form:
Ballad