War Poetry

Great War

Where dead men lies, I'm paralyzed, my brother's eyes are gone
And he shall be buried here, nameless marks his grave
Mother home, get a telegram and shed a tear of grief
Mud and blood, in foreign land, trying to understand

Where is this greatness I've been told?
This is the lies that we've been sold
Is this a worthy sacrifice?

Great war, and I cannot take more
Great tour, I keep on marching on
I play the great score, there will be no encore
Great war, the war to end all wars

I'm standing here, I'm full of fear, with bodies at my feet
Over there in the other trench, bullets wear my name
Lead ahead as the captain said and show them no remorse
Who am I to understand what have I become?

I do my duties, pay the price
I'll do the worthy sacrifice
I know my deeds are not in vain

Great war, and I cannot take more
Great tour, I keep on marching on
I play the great score, there will be no encore
Great war, the war to end all wars

And feet by feet
We pay the price of a mile here
Though men are falling, we see heroes rise
We face the heat
As we are fighting until the dawn
So follow me and we will write our own history

Great war, and I cannot take more
Great tour, I keep on marching on
I play the great score, there will be no encore
Great war, the war to end all wars

by 'Sabaton'

'The Great Martian War 1913-1917' full movie

https://youtu.be/w9ojdKpcE3A

Good Morning Mr. Zip-Zip-Zip
(1918)

We come from ev'ry quarter,
From North, South, East and West,
To clear the way to freedom
For the land we love the best.
We've left our occupations
and home, so far and dear,
But when the going's rather rough,
We raise this song in cheer:

Good morning, Mister Zip-Zip-Zip,
With your hair cut just as short as mine,
Good morning, Mister Zip-Zip-Zip,
You're surely looking fine!
Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust,
If the Camels don't get you,
The Fatimas must,
Good morning, Mister Zip-Zip-Zip,
With your hair cut just as short as,
your hair cut just as short as,
your hair cut just as short as mine.

You see them on the highway,
You meet them down the pike,
In olive drab and khaki
Are soldiers on the hike;
And as the column passes,
The word goes down the line,
Good morning, Mister Zip-Zip-Zip,
You're surely looking fine.

By Eugene Buckley & Peerless Quartette

https://youtu.be/_8kNpGTPbvk

Sitting On The Berlin Wall
January 1990

On my way back to Belfast I wandered past Bebelplatz,
smelled the air for burning books, glanced at Brandenburg Tor,
and went to that open field, Potsdamer Platz.
I chewed the alien words until, like the Berlin Wall,
my trust in language simply
collapsed.

Bordered by dead grass and foot-churned mud,
the long barrier, thick as memory, attacks the horizon–
a concrete scalpel slicing through the city.
I move to touch it: rough, strong, as dirty as politics.

A fresh hole smashed into the Soviet concrete
allowed noisy graffiti to frame East Germany.
I clasped a hook of rebar and swung myself up
onto the back of history. I straddled the Wall,
one foot here, the other there,
while a helicopter thumped in the distance,
its angry rotor reminding me of home, of Belfast.
I close my eyes and hover above the city of my birth–
the puff of tear gas, the pop of bombs,
funeral processions that twist
through flag-ridden streets.
The Peace Line, thick as memory,
slices the city in two, cleaving hate from hate.

Again in the middle of Potsdamer Platz,
I look from side to side,
and reassure the worried concrete
that there is still work to be done.

By Patrick Hicks

Song-Books of the War

In fifty years, when peace outshines
Remembrance of the battle lines,
Adventurous lads will sigh and cast
Proud looks upon the plundered past.
On summer morn or winter's night,
Their hearts will kindle for the fight,
Reading a snatch of soldier-song,
Savage and jaunty, fierce and strong;
And through the angry marching rhymes
Of blind regret and haggard mirth,
They'll envy us the dazzling times
When sacrifice absolved our earth.

Some ancient man with silver locks
Will lift his weary face to say:
'War was a fiend who stopped our clocks
Although we met him grim and gay.'
And then he'll speak of Haig's last drive,
Marvelling that any came alive
Out of the shambles that men built
And smashed, to cleanse the world of guilt.
But the boys, with grin and sidelong glance,
Will think, 'Poor grandad's day is done.'
And dream of lads who fought in France
And lived in time to share the fun.

by Siegfried Sassoon

League of Nations instituted, January 10, 1920

A Veteran’s Playlist: The Top 10 Vietnam War Songs

Godspeed

It's January 1970
Do you remember me?
You put me on a boat across the sea
In the name of victory

But much to my surprise when I arrived
There was no welcoming committee
Instead there was a man for me to kill
And now I see how this is all too real

Then I saw him standing with a bayonet
And as I ran towards him he hardly broke a sweat
When I took his life he fell to his knees
And as his eyes began to fade
He whispered softly

Godspeed this letter
Away from here
I've sealed it with my tears
And stamped it with my fears
Godspeed this letter
Away from you
My work done here is through
I'm on my way to better days
And so are you

And in his pocket there
I saw a picture of his children and his family
And I began to realize
This person I despised
In actuality
Was not much different from myself
We probably could have taught each other many things
And now I know it's much too late although I couldn't hesitate
I check his gun and his chamber was empty

Then I saw him standing with a bayonet
And as I ran towards him he hardly broke a sweat
When I took his life he fell to his knees
And as his eyes began to fade
He whispered softly

Godspeed this letter
Away from here
I've sealed it with my tears
And stamped it with my fears
Godspeed this letter
Away from you
My work done here is through
I'm on my way to better days
And so are you

Oh, we know not what we've done
And oh, we know not what we've done

Godspeed this letter
Away from here
I've sealed it with my tears
And stamped it with my fears
Godspeed this letter
Away from you
My work done here is through
I'm on my way to better days
And so are you

By Ronnie Winters

http://youtu.be/z9_yBtBALLs

At The Peace Table

Who shall sit at the table, then, when the terms of peace are made-
The wisest men of the troubled lands in their silver and gold brocade?
Yes, they shall gather in solemn state to speak for each living race,
But who shall speak for the unseen dead that shall come to the council place?

Though you see them not and you hear them not, they shall sit at the table, too;
They shall throng the room where the peace is made and know what it is you do;
The innocent dead from the sea shall rise to stand at the wise man's side,
And over his shoulder a boy shall look- a boy that was crucified.

You may guard the doors of that council hall with barriers strong and stout,
But the dead unbidden shall enter there, and never you'll shut them out.
And the man that died in the open boat, and the babes that suffered worse,
Shall sit at the table when peace is made by the side of a martyred nurse.

You may see them not, but they'll all be there; when they speak you may fail to hear;
You may think that you're making your pacts alone, but their spirits will hover near;
And whatever the terms of the peace you make with the tyrant whose hands are red,
You must please not only the living here, but must satisfy your dead.

By Edgar Albert Guest

Miniature

The woman stood up in front of the table. Her sad hands
begin to cut thin slices of lemon for tea
like yellow wheels for a very small carriage
made for a child's fairy tale. The young officer sitting opposite
is buried in the old armchair. He doesn't look at her.
He lights up his cigarette. His hand holding the match trembles,
throwing light on his tender chin and the teacup's handle. The clock
holds its heartbeat for a moment. Something has been postponed.
The moment has gone. It's too late now. Let's drink our tea.
Is it possible, then, for death to come in that kind of carriage?
To pass by and go away? And only this carriage to remain,
with its little yellow wheels of lemon
parked for so many years on a side street with unlit lamps,
and then a small song, a little mist, and then nothing?

by Yannis Ritsos
Translation by Edmund Keeley

We Be Soldiers Three

We be soldiers three
Pardonnez moi, Je vous en pris?
Lately come forth of the low country
With never a penny of money.

Here, good fellow, I'll drink to thee
Pardonnez moi, Je vous en pris?
To all good fellows wherever they be
With never a penny of money.

Here, good fellow, I'll sing you a song,
Sing for the brave and sing for the strong,
To all those living and those who are gone,
With never a penny of money

And he who will not pledge me this
Pardonnez moi, Je vous en pris?
Pays for the shot, what ever it is
With never a penny of money.

Charge it again, boy, charge it again,
Pardonnez moi, Je vous en pris?
As long as there is any ink in thy pen.
With never a penny of money.

We be soldiers three
Pardonnez moi, Je vous en pris?
Lately come forth of the low country
With never a penny of money
With never a penny of money.

By Thomas Ravencroft

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https://youtu.be/1Jl6TIkw6js

Comrades

You can read their names in the list of games
In the school of long ago.
Henderson A. and Wilson J.
And Marriott W. O.

They ragged and fought as schoolboys ought,
And learned to play the game.
You can act the fool at an English school,
But it builds you all the same.
Verses you plan which fail to scan
And your French is none too good,
But you learn to shape as a gentleman,
And to do as a Briton should.

For there's something there, in the sober air,
And the reek of the mellow place.
Which seems to hold the instincts old.
And the soul of an ancient race.
Where Latin and Greek are far to seek
There is home-made lore for you.
The thing that's fair, and the thing that's square,
And the thing no chap can do.

Gothic and grim, in the transept dim
Of the chapel grey and old
There's a marbled shrine where line on line
The dead boys' names are scrolled.
They gave their dreams of what might be
For the sake of the things that are,
When the joyous strife of their glad young life
Had changed to the strife of war.

But there they be, the comrades three,
As in the long ago,
Henderson A. and Wilson J.
And Marriott W. O.

By Arthur Conan Doyle

Goodbye Young Soldier

We said goodbye tonight
To a soldier whom I did not know
He did his duty well
But sadly he had to go

He did not travel this far
To leave behind family & friend
He came to do his duty.
He did not know it would be his end

His short life was just that
A soldier’s ultimate commitment he gave
This earth deserved him longer
He went too early to his grave

He is one of many heroes
Another poor young soldier
For he is not alone
No years left in which to grow older

What comfort lies for those he left
Never again to be by their side
A gallery of happy memories
And deservedly this Nation’s pride

So farewell young soldier
Whilst here you did just right
I hope your life was not a waste
Farewell young soldier, sleep tight.

By Sgt John Norbury, Afghanistan, 4 January 2010