Poem for Armistice Day 11 11 2014
Posted: November 11, 2014 Filed under: Poem | Tags: Army, Navy, Poppy Day, RAF, Remembrance, Royal British Legion, Warfare, WW1, WW2 3 CommentsRemembrance Sunday.
What would you have had us remember?
As you mustered in the trenches,
Around the gun emplacements.
As you hopped into the cockpit
And flung yourself skywards,
Or plumbed the depths
Submerged and submarined?
Should we remember your bravery?
Your mockery? Your cynicism in the face of duty?
Your gut wrenching anxiety,
Your fear, your mortal pain,
As you were killed and wounded,
Again and again and again?
Do the flags, the parades,
The preachers, the cavalcades,
Act as sufficient homage?
Or would peace, justice, equality
Be more deserving of your patronage?
But whichever,
It is true.
We must continue,
To remember you.
(This poem, and lots of others, to be found in my collection, ‘Marcism Today’)
Veterans ( 6th June 1944)
Posted: June 6, 2014 Filed under: Poem | Tags: Army, D Day, France, GIs, Navy, RAF, Remembrance, Veterans, WW11, WW2 1 Comment
70 years before…….
Young men stumbling into the shell bound surf
Silver flying fish
Stunned
The boys, wading on and in
Falling, camouflaged no more
Booming, battling forth
Whistling bullets, the siren song of war
Deafening the ocean’s unerring roar.
Years ago
in Juneau
I watched ‘Saving Private Ryan’
With Pete Bibb
Self appointed ‘old timer’
Who left the movie house
“Cannot watch this, have to go”
he muttered
As the faux machine guns
Cinematically stuttered.
This D Day morning
The robes of priests, clustered
The coat tails of politicians
And hats of royalty
Fluttered
As the bemedalled veterans
Mustered
Attendant, attentive,
Old men now
Memories shared, perhaps, despairs
Some stood and stared
As the peace yearning prayers
Were uttered.
In the fields at home
The buttercups, the thistle heads
Were bowing in the stiffening wind
That blows across the Channel
Westward, ho!
The clouds scud seawards
A breath of memory passes
Back across to France
Where death gleaned a mighty harvest
No respect for rank, for officer classes
The flags and flowers
Half masted
The crowds lost
Perchance
In collective trance
Subdued respect, even awe
For
Our veterans
And own them all, we all surely must
Those alive
Others sand blasted, dust
Their debt, in full, is met
Our account
Ever owed
To remember
And not forget.
Marc Mordey 6/6/14
