Long Ypres Poems

Three cousins played a “game’ of war
A map of Europe spread across the floor
No adults there to keep the score
As each of them wanted more and more

Three of four empires lay upon that map
As they...

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February came in keeping with its ancient character a month of coldness, wetness and of thawing,
With departing frost and melting snow, February could possibly be called the wet season,
Maybe it's a time for floods and...

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AND THE MOTHERS WEEP
                               ...

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Courage of Youth, Battle of Ypres, Flanders Field
(A Tribute)

Tough as nails young man with a red right hand
red-fire and whiskey ran in his blood.
Courageous seed of vast and cold hard land
quick temper, power of a...

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Lay me to rest in marbled halls with angels at my head,
not lying here in the mud of Ypres with khaki turning red.
Let me die a noble death, one that's worth fighting for,
not to avenge...

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Ypres, was by far the worst:

Fields were littered with lost memories,
Dismembered dreams, 
Faded laughs and gestures-
The little nuances of life,
The things that made us tick...

All forgotten.

Some men walked among the bodies, smiling:
"Our fallen heroes, you...

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The air was brittle with the cold
mud made life so very hard to bare.
Came to mind that maybe xmas is soon
Remembers roaring fires and christmas fayre

was so cold in the trenches
enemy not so many yards...

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QUIET FIELDS OF YPRES
by
JOHN M. ARRIBAS


These fields are quiet and silent there is little sound
Dandelions and wild flowers cover the ground
The grasses are tall and green. The soil is soft and damp
Stillness belies the sanctity...

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He spoke to his major sitting in judgement
His crime was absence and to jail he'd be sent
Across the battalion colour patch on his shoulder 
Was a brass metal A which showed him as bolder

He had...

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My Father took me to the Menin Gate
lest I should not knot that lives were lost
to make me free.
Then at the cemetery I fell asleep
while he walked along the rows
on soft grass between the crosses.
...

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My Father Took me to the Menin Gate
lest I should not know that lives were lost
to make me free.
Then at the cemetery I fell asleep
while he walked along the rows on soft grass between the...

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REMEMBERANCE POEM
(penned by Gordon AKA Alex Alexander R Sigs 1987 –2013)

Alas it is that time of year
When we all shed a tear
For absent soldiers who went before
In far away lands fighting a war

From Ypres to...

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Even the dead reject this blasted earth.

The ground, such as it is,
Is freshly Antidiluvean,
And 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...

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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...

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Twitching limply atop an Ulster lamppost
Like a hung man, legs kicking in spasm at the last seconds of life
Its bigoted purpose now spent and now abandoned to the elements
No longer recognisable as the flag of...

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The board- flat, immovable, sterile, arranged for a fun, friendly, relaxing battle till the ultimate death but a few aristocrats. The warzone landscape always unblemished, dry and warm. No rain, no freeze. Often the Generals...

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October 25th, 2020
Belgium All Star Festival
Variety of languages are being spoken
Church of Our Lady of Laeken smiles as she sees them gather
Across from her boats are being decorated for the festivities
We have the best festivals...

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Color Coquelicot
 

Blazing Coquelicot
paints famed Flanders Field Poppies
on battle-scarred land.
Honored too on coat lapels...
war symbol of remembrance.


Sandra M. Haight


~NA~
Premiere Contest: Kim's Color Splash
Sponsor: Kim Rodrigues
Judged: 07/14/2017

Rules: Write a Tanka or other brief poem using an...

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House for house wall for wall and crumb for broken crumb

	We fight like Stalingrad with nothing left to salvage

	For honour glory power and some ‘god’ or other

Ypres Gallipoli Aleppo Damascus and ruin’s rubbles blights plain...

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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...

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Surrounded by the glitz and frippery
the ribbons, bells and stars all meant to warm you,
on the mantelpiece, parading with the cards
the one that silently ' regrets to inform you'.
Muffled merriment, jaded joy 
from those who...

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The cloud of Abyss
It was a perfect day cobalt sky and azure, glittering sea
When a stygian cloud came from the east the Lord of Wars
Had spat phlegm spraying us with horror 

Inside this monstrosity body...

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We are the soldiers who have no voice
In war or peace, we have no choice
Yet we toil and fight alongside men
We do all we do, the best way we can

We bleed and we die, we...

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A DETOUR TO YPRES, (on returning from a holiday in France 2013)

WHAT A WASTE
A DIM TARRY SUN CLOSES, THE ERRODED SCRAGGY DAY,
IN HIDDEN CORNERS OF SOURED BOGS BROKEN MEN, AND MEMORIES SIT
MY DREAM WANDERS MONO-CHROME...

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The Cloud of Abyss

It was a perfect day, cobalt sky and azure, glittering sea
when the stygian clouds from the east came
the lord of war had spat phlegm, spraying us with horror
Inside this monstrosity, body parts,...

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