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Registered: November 1st, 2010
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posted on April 23rd, 2014 at 11:49 AM
A poem ANZAC and others
Off topic yep but thought I would share, I have this great old book of poems put together by an
Audrey Grealy on wartime aviation poetry called "The Sky Their Battlefield" obviously about wartime aviation I thought I would share it, one of my
favorites, Lest We Forget.
Scampton Churchyard
They lie together in quiet peace
Of grassy graves, sun dappled by the trees,
The stones a little mossy with the years,
Their requiem the humming of the bees.
The English boy whose wings are folded now,
That badge hard-won in blazing shell-torn skies,
No more the cricket field, the Sunday tea,
The lazy river days, the college ties.
The young Canadian sleeps in English soil,
For him no journey home, no more he'll know
The gold and scarlet maples in the fall,
The pines and bob-sleighs in the dazzling snow,
The boy who came from far Australian shores
He made his final everlasting flight,
No more for him the golden sunlit beach,
The pounding surf, the southern cross by night.
The flier from New Zealand is at rest,
His brave young heart has flown beyond return,
Beyond the snowy mountain peaks of home,
The sparkling lakes, the geysers and the fern.
Beside them now, in mute companionship,
The German lad lies in the English loam,
His short life shattered in a foreign sky,
No more to see his family home.
We take our lives for granted - but we should
Be grateful for each day we start anew,
And think, for one small moment, of these boys
Who only reached the age of twenty-two.
tweety
Wolfsburg Wizard
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posted on April 23rd, 2014 at 05:10 PM
Good one.
Here is one of 300 of mine I've written.
SOLDIER BLUE
White soldier in every town
Wears a slouch to hide the frown
Statue a reminder of where he’d been
Greatest carnage the world had seen
In a trench with a mate
About to charge then hesitate
Bullets fly above their heads
Living then but as good as dead
Share a fag make a joke
Fellow digger-bloody good bloke
Bullets zing all around
So much mud there be no ground
Immortal statue at every town
Tribute to the digger fallen down
Could have been me maybe you
Lest we forget-soldier ‘blue’
Hat on reverse teenage joy
Same age then-only a boy
Jumpers word “COOL Ok”
Ignores statue with plenty to say
If concrete face could erase the frown
White statue in every town
He’d halt the boys without Aussie pride
Teach them not to copy sloppy stride
“All my mates fought for this great land
do you boy ever understand”
“I stand here in great uniform
to remind you lad-before you were born”
“I love you young man for you are me
But I didn’t make it to twenty three
Be proud to be Aussie no regret
Please little Aussie-lest you forget!”...
Tony Russell Dawson Strathbogie
Victoria Australia
