who needs their shoes mended,
remembrance Sunday
wept for my soul. hello alleyway cousin,
I hear the thud of rain,
November morning you bought me down
Tempest and Thunder
I remember the frailty of grief
The day new day is of old
The Guildhall clock chimes
Eleven times this special day,
A great silence descends as
The two minutes tick away.
On parade at the Cenotaph,
An old man among old men
(Where did the years go for
In my mind I’m young again):
Not in best battledress
Or even Regimental Blues
But I’m booted and suited
With not quite bulled shoes,
And the old drill moves come back
So i manage to get them right
But age won’t quite let me stand
To attention, back ramrod straight.
Mixed in with the younger ones we old
Men marched with swagger and pride
Through the applause of the crowds,
Who lined the streets on either side.
For each of us in our way
Have walked that special walk
And we all still today
Can talk that special talk.
With pride and emotion we accepted
From those crowds at the parade
On behalf of those long dead
Recognition of sacrifices made.
I shall not march again, this
Time I just needed to appear
To show my respect in this
One Hundredth Anniversary Year
Famished and flagging footsoldiers;
facing fatigue, fitful fever,
faeces and foul, foetid fungi.
Fostering feelings, frustrated,
for this faraway, foreign field.
Forays so fraught with fine failure;
forfeiting furtive and fiendish,
fatally fettered from the first.
Forged by such fatuous fawners,
for folly to feud for a field.
Forced forwards with fleetness of foot;
firearms flash and fragments fly far,
feigning the firmament aflame.
Forces fight so ferociously,
fratricide set free on this field.
Forthright and filial feelings;
families of fine forefathers,
fought fiercely, for fear we’d forget.
Familiar flora forms focus,
for the fallen in Flanders Field.
- - - - - - - - -
8 syallables on every line (www.howmanysyllables.com)
November 2018
Entered in Brian Strand's "Contest No 515".
(1st Place)
I wanted to do something special - and a bit different - to mark the centenary of the end of The Great War (11 November 1918). This poem is dedicated to all the brave souls lost defending freedom during that terrible conflict (and all conflicts since).
Lamb Guard of Honour with Lemon and Mint Crust.
Food for Thought.
In deep,drenched trenches did they wait
To confront the foe
Mud-infested and rat-swarmed.
Lit fags,shielded by begrimed and cupped hands,
Passing from mate to mate
Against the booming background
Of the heavy guns.
Some shells bursting overhead
Others throwing up clumps of dirt and burning flesh.
Stifled screams of pain
Which distant ears deny
As they dread the cry
"Over the top"
Into the blazing barrage and the limb-ripping wire.
Now in quiet,restful trenches do they lie
Stark white crosses
Populating the ground
Still and peaceful
Grim reminders of a war
We have time to regret
And wish it had not come to this
That so many had to give their lives
So selflessly to save our future
And lose theirs.
My dad always choked when he tried to name,
His friends and comrades who hadn’t returned,
From sorties, dogfights and reconnaissance jobs,
And would motion by his hands about church.
The service on Remembrance Sunday morning,
Would let his worn, torn-up, shredded insides out,
Give him his heart of thoroughfare and ambition,
Respected his silence on the matter of the mind.
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