Long Bayonets Poems
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.Inspired From Sapper French's Diary from April 23. 1916
"Come On Over Fritz"
Rain like a shower down my back off a thin wooden lath
It’s cold and miserable unlike a welcome hot bath
Air so bad we cannot breathe, today don’t feel like taking this path.
Gas bombs are falling a thick yellow cloud rolls our way.
Pray God the wind catches and sends it astray.
Thank God no gas lungs for us today…
We used the same trick as miners with a canary bird to test for gas
But we caged a mouse instead, if it died we would not pass
We got sick, but the mouse survived, oh telling us; what an ass.
Got a cut upon my leg, the doctor says it’s septic
What a relief a hospital bed, lots of company, analeptic
I though this war was right, now I’m a sceptic.
Back in the field scores of bodies lying dead
Personalities cut down, stuck in the mud ahead
Blood bath, bodies everywhere we tread.
Walking in water up to our knees without ease
Found water cress, so good with bread and cheese.
A little comfort, although not much sitting in this bise.
It’s strange something simple like finding water cress
Can give us an unsophisticated pleasure in this gory mess
Eating and drinking, amidst body parts - no less.
But we had to do what we could for every inch we could gain
How the mighty fall, the Germans came to our trench of mud and rain
With grenades, daggers and bayonets – most stayed, face down; slain.
A huge German solider was patched up by our lads
An older man with a scratch; reminded us of our dads
It’s remarkable we fight and kill, yet still mend these cads.
August the tenth a strange day, a German stuck his head over the barbette
One of our boys called out “Come on over fritz” as if he did it for a bet
Fritz relied in perfect English “no blooming fear” happy to have met.
After the respite of banter back and forth
New orders went out to be followed henceforth
Anyone talking to the enemy would be arrested thenceforth.
Entered into Mark Toney's
Poetry Marathon mile 7 contest
Cannister shots explodes overhead,
stripping the leaves from the trees,
a rain of jagged steel above…
it takes courage not to flee.
The generals say we strike the center
and the Yankees will run hard,
if we break them here the war is won,
so we’ve got to make this charge.
We all step out, a long gray line,
and see what is a-waiting:
An open field, a mile’s walk,
then a rock-wall with blue-coats, hated .
And worse still, it is a small hill
up which we have to march,
but our guns have broke the Yankees down,
so we’re going to make this charge.
But their guns keep roaring endlessly,
as we trudge on in the hot sun.
The blue-coats have all found the nerve,
I don’t see one of them run.
Shells crash down in fiery rage,
and tear in our ranks great scars,
but it’s too late now, the die is cast,
we must continue with the charge.
People falling, to the left and right,
as we come up upon a fence.
Commander’s cry,”Get over quick!”
amidst screams so violent.
Yankees rise up and they take aim,
they are in no mood to spar.
Volleys scythe down men like grass,
but we push on with the charge.
All I hear is pain and death,
as I drive up to the rock-wall.
Few Southrons left besides me,
endless Yankees, standing tall...
Armistead, he breaks through them!
But blue reserves come forward,
Armistead goes down, bayonets reign
at the end of this great charge.
I stab, I swing, I smash one,
but another stabs my thigh.
I fall and struggle in the mass
of good soldiers left to die.
A blue-coat sees me lying there,
says,”How did you ever get this far?
It matters not, you’re a prisoner now,
for making this foolish charge.”
The Yankees they walk me away,
my fight is over for good.
I don’t entirely feel ashamed,
even though I know I should.
Out on the slope, the meadow is
by endless broken bodies marred.
I pray to God that he might damn
This futile, murderous charge.
Johnny got his gun that May day
sent by Nixon's cronies to betray unarmed souls
to Kent State with rifles, bayonets,
and thirteen students were gunned down on the grass knoll.
With cries against Dick's bloody war
young civilians burned and swore, "bring the warriors home."
They had enough of gore and lies
of Unconstitutional Wars and napalm bone.
We've guns at home, guns abroad
"What are we fighting for?" they cried out, and were killed
Few even remember a name
of four young people, Allison, Jeff, Sandra and Will.
A Republic formed by revolt
remembers well how to gain, get your gun my son
for Big Brothers got his again
and a bullets a very hard thing to outrun.
*The Kent State Massacre - May 4, 1978
Never never forget your own government took rifle toting
bayonette pointed troops onto college campuses and killed
four unarmed students, youths and wounded more, paralyzing
one. If they could do this.....
They marched in like they owned the place
In uniforms, formidable and menacing
Bereft, looking around with hostility
Bayonets in hand, immutable in their stance
They pillaged what was not theirs
She was lumped in their vicious interlude
So enraged was she, her body lay brittle
Taken by force, abused and humiliated
A reluctant starlet in a morbid sketch seeming to last forever
When the men left, there was a short tenuous instant
But she picked up her courage
With her scattered clothes
Made her way to the shore
Demurely walked waist deep into the sea
To wash away the last traces of disgrace
Determined that their assault would not last a minute longer
Chalked it up to being just another victim, another statistic
Life would go on, she would turn the page
Refusing to sacrifice the rest of her life
With another thought of this gruesome ordeal
Refusing to be a victim for a moment longer
Not giving them the satisfaction
AP: 3rd place 2025
Submitted on October 20, 2017 for contest EIGHT-WORD CHALLENGE sponsored by JOHN HAMILTON - RANKED 3RD
Scribe Under Fire
The wall had been there for an eternity
closing gaps of time and sacred places
field stones memories and gentle caress
Hans could not write any longer any
shorter it was too loud and far too quiet
the truth did not escape the lonely
fortress of sheltered dreams’ betrayal
He had lost a touch of his mind and a hand
already in previous senseless exchanges
luckily he was born tough and left handed
before right became wrong and left was a crime
When the trenches had become thicker
with blood bodies sticky bayonets guts
gore debatable glory and forlorn medals
Hans wrote from the depth of soul and despair
Hell bombs grenades shrapnel and agony
enacted a torrid cacophony of fire and noise
his nostrils became scorched while his ears
refused to hear and to listen any much longer
Scribbling poetry on the back of cigarette packets
his molten fountain pen fused with his mind
and he fought for his life his sanity and one
terminal act of kindness morale and advice
Hans could not release even one more shot from the
gun dangling from overburdened shoulders but
the sergeant shouted ‘attack you wretched coward
for King and for country for honour and sweet victory’
It had been a modern war and someone must have
known about shell shock or post traumatic disorder
but when they executed him with clean merciless shots
from a nameless firing squad because it was not for refusal
But for spreading fake news about the beauty of war for
sabotaging innocent minds of future generations for
soldiering with a mighty pen and not with a glittering
sword so he was shot at the wall for writing and not fighting
September 2018
For five frigid days, strife raged upon the battlefield.
Men bravely struggled, yet neither side would yield.
By the flash of cannon fire they became stark silhouettes,
As they stormed from the trenches with slashing bayonets!
From dusk to dreary dawn there was no respite.
Peace it seemed would forever elude that ravaged site.
Tonight men recalled the birth of the Prince of Peace.
They yearned to set aside their arms and see the battle cease.
But on this Yule Eve an eerie silence crept o'er the field,
And suddenly from above, a brilliant star was revealed!
As thoughts of Christmases past added to their despair,
The dulcet voice of a lone soldier wafted through the air.
Tho' the words were alien to the Yanks, it was a familiar refrain.
'Twas "Stille Nacht" that drifted across that desolate plain.
In their native tongues, foes joined in that ancient carol,
Setting aside all enmity, forgetting for a time all peril.
For a brief moment, foes embraced in brotherhood.
"Peace on earth, good will to men," they understood.
But on the 'morrow cannon would again begin to roar,
As weary men again took up the terrible weapons of war.
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired (© All Rights Reserved)
Turks swept into Smyrna, set it aflame
Europe stood watching—silence its stain.
Desperate Christians crowded the Quay
Hoping for ships to take them away.
The crowd was missing women of marriageable age
Turkish forces had taken them, lets close that page
Some men swam to the boats, but orders said no
Sailors with bayonets pushed them back to the flow.
So, in the hour of darkness, who could come?
A lowly YMCA director braved the Turkish guns
His name was Asa Jennings, went up high, made a plea
Got an eleven-day window for those remaining to flee.
The Greeks had just lost a war, and were afraid
Asa went to the Greek leader, who was hard to persuade
Asa threatened he'd uncode their communications
The failure to act would be displayed to the nations.
Asa also went to the Turkish leader Ataturk.
Predicted world revulsion, argument partly worked.
Ataturk ruled young men must stay, women could flee
Men must go to labor camps, far from the sea.
Asa was just the head of the YMCA
He didn't have official power, but he bluffed anyway.
He threatened, lied and cajoled
It took nerve, but fortune favors the bold.
Asa got the Greek navy, and merchant marine
Moved a 3rd of a million, from that deadly scene.
Then radio requests began, more and more:
Jennings directed more ships to the Aegean shore
A rescue of over a million lives
Children and old men, husbands and wives.
Some American naval officers also did their part
They all deserve remembrance, they all had heart.
Some would say this story is oversimplified
There were others who helped, took the refugees side
Halsey and Giannis played important roles
In saving so many desperate souls.
But picture this, one man in the right place and time
It may never happen again, in your life or mine.
Asa Jennings, leading a convoy, Old Glory flying high
refugees cheered and refugees cried.
Asa was a religious man, maybe that's what it takes
Later in Lausanne, he negotiated more breaks
The men in labor camps could go to Greece
A prisoner exchange, since now there was peace.
Asa died at 55, a short lifespan
But who of us could do as much, let's honor the man.
...And though the rifles were slower to load,
the Overmountain Men made use of trees,
concealing themselves from counterfire
in places that the British couldn’t see.
With countless snipers popping out to shoot,
all the loyalists there atop the hill
knew that something had to be done quickly,
so many had already been killed.
Ferguson ordered a bayonet charge,
old steel glinting as his men pushed down,
the patriots scattered, running away,
it seemed the British would hold the ground…
But as soon as the men returned to the line,
the Americans moved back in again,
two more charges had the same damn result,
flashing bayonets could not break these men.
As they kept shooting, chipping away,
the loyalists knew that things were dire,
too many of their brethren lay dead,
cut down by the frontiersman’s fire.
These patriots were men who shot for food,
missing for them meant their families might starve,
the killed so many that white flags went up,
leaving Ferguson rather alarmed.
He rode through, hacking the flags with his sword,
calling on his men for courage and grit,
but just then the patriots spotted his horse,
charged up and shot Ferguson off of it.
An American then grabbed the Major,
and dragged him behind the patriot lines,
it was here that Ferguson did something
seen by all as remarkably malign.
When asked to surrender by a soldier,
he pulled his pistol and shot the man dead.
The patriots all fired on the man,
until his chest had become mostly lead.
The remaining loyalists struck their flag,
and they came forth to try to surrender,
but the patriots remembers Waxhaws,
there was real danger of massacre.
They remember that the British there had
cut down men who had thrown up their hands,
but William Campbell, and John Sevier,
would not allow such dishonor to stand.
They accepted the British surrender,
near three hundred loyalists had been killed,
to only twenty-eight patriot dead,
with great relief the southern states were filled.
Major Ferguson’s words proved prophetic,
though probably not in his desired way,
no force could move him from King’s Mountain,
he lies under its slopes to this day.
Tread not on me, brother!
To live is to expand.
Deterrence! Slay the Other!
Cold core countermand!
Boots a-click-clack, cobblestone.
Midnight raid and how!
Help the boy to hold his own!
Sacred, O my cow!
Written in the ancient s blood?
Time to cause a flood!
Rill and river, ricin, rud!
Break, fade, flash, firewood!
Bats before the bayonets?
Batons too can kill.
Settle in before she sets?
Providence, thy will.
Wild as any modern force?
Stranger than the sea?
Shift, O river, from thy course?
Not the likes of me!
Covert action! Civilize!
Cut them down to size!
Aim for whites of foemen eyes!
Dare to criticize?
Thunder, roll o'er city street!
Alarums to ring!
Riot team, best ye complete!
Jerk them on the string!
Silent aftermath, thy path.
Kingdom, how ye grew.
Pour out poison on the math!
Hope, need talking to...
The battle rages on
As the bullets fly
In the quest for victory
Our young soldiers die
They laid like stone
Tears of red
Hearts pierced by bayonets
A hundred men dead
Fighting for freedom
That’s what they were told
As the days progress
The truth would unfold
Not freedom or liberty
But a piece of land
Greed and power
Go hand in hand
With dawn’s light
The sounds of battle now still
One soldier stands alone
No more he has to kill
Wading in a sea of blood
Fallen comrades at his feet
Was this truly victory
A war based on deceit
What freedom lies in survival
When so many heartbeats cease
It is only those that died
That truly know the meaning of peace
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