Poetry of War

[PanzerBob]

PANZERBOB: did you write that *Discovery of Yet Another Mass Grave* poem?
----

Yes I did Ms Blitz, guess I should have signed as such.

your *Discovery of Yet Another Mass Grave* is a powerful grim piece.
well done. thanks.
please write us some more?
----
TO ALL poets: clearly state if a new poem is written by you, or you may miss out on the special comments and credits that you deserve.
[ if i like a poem written by a member, i will try to support and encourage you.]

this is a good, easy place to practice your war poetry: amongst an interested and respectful audience.
Please share your creative works and rhymes with us?
----

Thank you, Lily. I will try; it is more difficult to write a poem on these matters because of how it causes me to keep looking at the issue for sometime. When you state a fact on the same subject its out and done. Believe it or not I wrote much of that piece with tears in my eyes. These times of my life are forever never a moment away.

Bob

[Lily Von Blitz]

--- The Lost Legion ---

There's a Legion that never was 'listed,
That carries no colours or crest,
But, split in a thousand detachments,
Is breaking the road for the rest.
Our fathers they left us their blessing --
They taught us, and groomed us, and crammed;
But we've shaken the Clubs and the Messes
To go and find out and be damned
(Dear boys!),
To go and get shot and be damned.

So some of us chivy the slaver,
And some of us cherish the black,
And some of us hunt on the Oil Coast,
And some on -- the Wallaby track:
And some of us drift to Sarawak,
And some of us drift up The Fly,
And some share our tucker with tigers,
And some with the gentle Masai
(Dear boys!),
Take tea with the giddy Masai.

We've painted The Islands vermilion,
We've pearled on half-shares in the Bay,
We've shouted on seven-ounce nuggets,
We've starved on a Seedeeboy's pay;
We've laughed at the world as we found it --
Its women and cities and men --
From Sayyid Burgash in a tantrum
To the smoke-reddened eyes of Loben
(Dear boys!),
We've a little account with Loben.

The ends o' the Earth were our portion,
The ocean at large was our share.
There was never a skirmish to windward
But the Leaderless Legion was there:
Yes, somehow and somewhere and always
We were first when the trouble began,
From a lottery-row in Manila,
To an I.D.B. race on the Pan
(Dear boys!),
With the Mounted Police on the Pan.

We preach in advance of the Army,
We skirmish ahead of the Church,
With never a gunboat to help us
When we're scuppered and left in the lurch.
But we know as the cartridges finish,
And we're filed on our last little shelves,
That the Legion that never was 'listed
Will send us as good as ourselves
(Good men!),
Five hundred as good as ourselves.

Then a health (we must drink it in whispers)
To our wholly unauthorised horde --
To the line of our dusty foreloopers,
The Gentlemen Rovers abroad --
Yes, a health to ourselves ere we scatter,
For the steamer won't wait for the train,
And the Legion that never was 'listed
Goes back into quarters again!
'Regards!
Goes back under canvas again.
Hurrah!
The swag and the billy again.
Here's how!
The trail and the packhorse again.
Salue!
The trek and the laager again.
---
By Rudyard Kipling. [ he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1907.]
-
[ The so-called 'Gentlemen Rovers abroad': if Kipling only knew how some of their rich powerful descendents would go on to ruthlessly exploit and mess up over half the world...]
----

[Wustenfuchs]

[ The so-called 'Gentlemen Rovers abroad': if Kipling only knew how some of their rich powerful descendents would go on to ruthlessly exploit and mess up over half the world...]
----

Ain't that the truth!

[Panzermacher]

I just got this poem in a email. Take a second to pause and reflect upon those through-out the world who are at war right now, during this Holiday Season. Or those who will not be home for Christmas as their service dictates they "Stand the watch."

The embers glowed softly, and in their dim light,
I gazed round the room and I cherished the sight.
My wife was asleep, her head on my chest,
My daughter beside me, angelic in rest.
Outside the snow fell, a blanket of white,
Transforming the yard to a winter delight.

The sparkling lights in the tree I believe,
Completed the magic that was Christmas Eve.
My eyelids were heavy, my breathing was deep,
Secure and surrounded by love I would sleep.
In perfect contentment, or so it would seem,
So I slumbered, perhaps I started to dream.

The sound wasn't loud, and it wasn't too near,
But I opened my eyes when it tickled my ear.
Perhaps just a cough, I didn't quite know, Then the
sure sound of footsteps outside in the snow.
My soul gave a tremble, I struggled to hear,
And I crept to the door just to see who was near.

Standing out in the cold and the dark of the night,
A lone figure stood, his face weary and tight.
A soldier, I puzzled, some twenty years old,
Perhaps a Marine, huddled here in the cold.
Alone in the dark, he looked up and smiled,
Standing watch over me, and my wife and my child.

"What are you doing?" I asked without fear,
"Come in this moment, it's freezing out here!
Put down your pack, brush the snow from your sleeve,
You should be at home on a cold Christmas Eve!"
For barely a moment I saw his eyes shift,
Away from the cold and the snow blown in drifts..

To the window that danced with a warm fire's light
Then he sighed and he said "Its really all right,
I'm out here by choice. I'm here every night."
"It's my duty to stand at the front of the line,
That separates you from the darkest of times.

No one had to ask or beg or implore me,
I'm proud to stand here like my fathers before me.
My Gramps died at ' Pearl on a day in December,"
Then he sighed, "That's a Christmas 'Gram always remembers."
My dad stood his watch in the jungles of ' Nam ',
And now it is my turn and so, here I am.

I've not seen my own son in more than a while,
But my wife sends me pictures, he's sure got her smile.
Then he bent and he carefully pulled from his bag,
The red, white, and blue... an American flag.
I can live through the cold and the being alone,
Away from my family, my house and my home.

I can stand at my post through the rain and the sleet,
I can sleep in a foxhole with little to eat.
I can carry the weight of killing another,
Or lay down my life with my sister and brother..
Who stand at the front against any and all,
To ensure for all time that this flag will not fall."

" So go back inside," he said, "harbor no fright,
Your family is waiting and I'll be all right."
"But isn't there something I can do, at the least,
"Give you money," I asked, "or prepare you a feast?
It seems all too little for all that you've done,
For being away from your wife and your son."

Then his eye welled a tear that held no regret,
"Just tell us you love us, and never forget.
To fight for our rights back at home while we're gone,
To stand your own watch, no matter how long.
For when we come home, either standing or dead,
To know you remember we fought and we bled.
Is payment enough, and with that we will trust,
That we mattered to you as you mattered to us."

This name was on the email and I hope he is the author.
LCDR Jeff Giles, SC, USN
30th Naval Construction Regiment
OIC, Logistics Cell One
Al Taqqadum, Iraq

[PanzerBob]

Thanks Panzermacher, these kinds of poems always bring a tear and an empty feeling (even though I've done my service, 22 years) that I somehow should be there as well, although I will be guarding a Defence Facility on Xmas and New Years. It is not the same as those who stand in harms way on our behalf.

Blest are the Peacemakers and Keepers
Eternal Damnation to the Evil that makes it necessary for our men and women to be so brave!

Bob out

[Panzermacher]

Same here Bob, And very well put. I too, have stood on that line...and spent some Christmas's from home....as well as some of the others here at the zone.

It had to be done.....it will ALWAYS have to be done until we, as a species, feel the need to no longer war upon each other....

My heartfelt thanks goes out to ALL of us, living and dead who have stood out there on Christmas and every other day, to protect what we hold dear....

[Lily Von Blitz]

~~ The Gold and the Grey ~~

Shadows and echoes haunt my dreams with dim and subtle pain,
With the faded fire of a lost desire, like a ghost on a moonlit plain,
In the pallid mist of death-like sleep she comes again to me:
I see the gleam of her golden hair and her eyes like the deep grey sea.

We came from the North as the spume is blown when the blue tide billows down,
The kings of the South were overthrown in ruin of camp and town,
Temple and shrine we dashed to dust, and roared in the dead gods' ears;
We saw the fall of the kings of Gaul and shattered the Belgae spears.

And South we rolled like a drifting cloud, like a wind that bends the grass,
But we smote in vain on the gates of Spain for our own kin held the Pass.
Then again we turned where the watch-fires burned to mark the lines of Rome,
And fire and tower and standard sank as ships that die in foam.

The legions came, hard hawk-eyed men, war-wise in march and fray,
But we rushed like a whirlwind on their ranks and swept their lines away.
Army and consul we overthrew, staining the trampled loam;
Horror and fear like a lifted spear lay hard on the walls of Rome.

Our mad desire was a flying fire that should burn the Roman gate --
But our day of doom lay hard on us, at a toss of the dice of Fate.
There rose a man in the ranks of Rome -- ill fall the cursed day!
Our German allies bit the dust and we turned hard at bay.

Over the land like a ghostly hand the mists of morning lay,
We smote their horsemen in the mist and hacked a bloody way.
We smote their horsemen in a cloud and as the mists were cleared
Right through the legion massed behind our headlong squadron sheared.

Saddle to saddle we chained our ranks for nothing of war we knew
But to charge in the old wild Celtic way -- and die, or slash right through.
We left red ruin in our wake, dead men in ghastly ranks
When fresh, unwearied Roman arms smote hard upon our flanks.

Baffled and weary, red with wounds, leaguered on every side,
Chained to our doom we smote in vain, slaughtered and sank and died.
Writhing among the horses' hoofs, torn and slashed and gored,
Gripping still with a bloody hand a notched and broken sword,

I heard the war-cry growing faint, drowned by the trumpet's call,
And the roar of "Marius! Marius!" triumphant over all.
Through the bloody dust and the swirling fog as I strove in vain to rise,
I saw the last of the warriors fall and swift as a falcon flies.

The Romans rush to the barricade where the women watched the fight --
I heard the screams and I saw steel flash and naked arms toss white.
The ravisher died as he gripped his prey, by the dagger swiftly driven --
By the next stroke, with her own hand, the heart of the girl was riven.

Brown fingers gripped white wrists in vain -- blood flecked the weary loam --
The Cimbri yield no virgin-slaves to glut the lords of Rome!
And I saw as I crawled like a crippled snake to slay before I died,
Unruly golden hair that tossed in high barbaric pride.

Her slim foot pressed a dead man's breast, her proud head back was thrown,
Matching the steel she held on high, her eyes in glory shone.
I saw the gleam of her golden hair and her eyes like the deep gray sea --
And the love in the gaze that sought me out, barbaric, fierce and free --
Then the dagger fell and the skies fell too and the mists closed over me.

Like phantoms into the ages lost has the Cimbrian nation passed;
Destiny shifts like summer clouds on Grecian hilltops massed.
Untold centuries glide away, Marius long is dust;
Even eternal Rome has passed in days of decay and rust.
But memories live in the ghosts of dreams and dreams still come to me,
And I see the gleam of her golden hair and her eyes like the deep grey sea.
~~~
by ROBERT E. HOWARD [ Master poet, great writer, Texan legend. he wrote this before 1936. ]

[Wicked]

The very nice one. Thank you Lily.

[RAF Liberators]

The Airfield

I lie here still, beside the hill, abandoned long to nature's will.
My buildings down, my people gone, my only sounds, the wild birds' song
For my mighty birds will rise no more, no more I hear the Merlins roar
And never now my bosom feels, the rumbling of their giant wheels.
Laughter, sorrow, hope and pain, I shall never know these things again
Emotions that I came to know of strange young men so long ago,
And in the future should structures tall, bury me beyond recall,
I shall still remember them, those wide-spread wings of my flying men.

From p316 Voice from the Stars by Tom Scotland

[Wustenfuchs]

I just came across this poem and thought I'd post it.

The Sinking of the HMS Royal Oak.
By Colin F. Jones
(Dedicated to the 833 men who lost their lives that night)

Like a sleeping giant the Royal Oak lay,
When the U-47 Submarine struck,
Three `eels' were fired two lost their way,
But with one there was some luck.
It hit Royal Oaks anchor cable,
Though it hardly left a mark,
Her shaded anchor lights still burned,
Faintly in the dark.
Flood number five from number one,
Open the outer door; she's ready!
`Los'; number five; fired from the stern,
The line of travel steady.
Close outer door! Tube is secured,
The fourth 'eel' is on its way.
But only a spiral of spurting sea,
Was visible through the spray.
"Reload the tubes," Priens order came,
"Prepare another `fan' of three,"
Down came the chain hoist from above,
As the Sub ploughed through the sea.
"Attack" the order turned the bows,
towards the sleeping ship,
Endrass bent over the optic aim,
Felt the Submarine turn and dip.
Doors reopened, the eels jumped out,
Three torpedoes from the bow,
Towards the Royal Oaks starboard side,
That were closing faster now.
The great ship shuddered, lifted up,
Then she gently settled back,
Lights flickered out, fans stopped running,
All power she did lack!
Across the decks the water flowed,
And a sheet of orange flame,
Exploded beneath the starboard deck,
Impossible to restrain.
Thick black smoke rose o'er the port,
Bulkheads shuddered and cracked,
Decks caved in and swirling flames,
Rose from the cruel impact
Through doors and hatches men were blown,
From hot ladders they were flung,
In hammocks brutally devoured by fire
Their flesh from the cabin walls clung.
Her death throes over the Royal Oak,
Plunged beneath the waves,
A tomb for more than eight hundred men,
For few that day were saved.
Silently the Submarine slipped,
Out to the ocean deep,
Leaving Scapa Flow and the Royal Oak,
To the nightmares of their sleep.