smiling young faces
sixteen summers seen
lives full of promise
now eager to please
"just turned eighteen sir"
earns infantry green
runaway schoolboy
for country and king
rifles and bayonets
shell holes and mud
barbed wire and trenches
young brothers of blood
landscape of corpses
the shells tear apart
counting lost friendships
fear in his heart
springtime in Wiltshire
blackbird sings to the night
staring to heaven
she prays he's alright
clutching the letter
from runaway son
somewhere in Belgium
he longs for his mom
fields full of gravestones
all races and creeds
sacrificed lifes, now
planted like seeds
"your country needs you"
each nation took heed
and died on the wire
that we may be free
november morning
two thousand eighteen
a hundred years mourned
on the old village green
names carved in granite
their faces unseen
lest we ever forget them
or that bloody regime
all war is obscene
-
Author:
dusk arising (
Offline) - Published: October 10th, 2020 01:33
- Comment from author about the poem: No apologies for posting this piece again (originally written 2018) as we approach that time of year when we remember the fallen. We must never let it fall from our conscience how these wars were and still are a blight on all of our humanity. We must strive to make war a thing of the past even though now war still rages, maims and kills this very day.
- Category: Unclassified
- Views: 23
- Users favorite of this poem: Poetic Dan
Offline)
Comments7
Your words capture the whole scene back then Dusk -- the shame of those war days when youth met it's terrible end we must never forget.
So very true d a.
https://youtu.be/_K1BdDVvV9Q
Yes, even late teenage years and 20's are comparatively 'young'.
Senseless waste, and 'religion' is nto excused either.
They have to grab the young before they harden into men that might have their own ideas about how wonderful war is NOT. Killing babies, babies killing. Gross...........
I am more than happy you have re-posted ..
this is my single most fave DA post ...
unhappily it seems, we never learn .....
Thanks for sharing!
Thank you for remembering what we should not forget -- "var is obscene."
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