Remembrance (Remove filter)
Bebelplatz
There’s something quite rotten in Britain,
Rights Human are now being rewritten,
A journos wrong question,
Brings fascist attention,
He’s arrested and, with prison smitten.
So much then, for pride and remembrance,
Behold now, their hopes in sad embers;
The lobby has paid,
Our forbears betrayed,
Hate thrives now, and it fears no hindrance.
Uilleam Ó Ceallaigh 28th Augu...
Wednesday 28th August 2024 1:50 pm
Silent Harbour
Borrow against your future days
that this moment ever lives,
for what such credit takes away
the joy of now forgives.
We cannot touch what has gone
nor conjure what's to come,
our memories may live on and on
what's lost might yet be won.
The silent harbour once a throng
with hope and fearful men,
sits peaceful now and has done long
for what was done ...
Friday 7th June 2024 9:34 am
Thank you
These dunes have been draped with flesh,
some on summer days surrendering to lovers
some under the gun by blood brothers.
The days between then and now are in the sand,
each footprint, each drop of joy and blood still here.
Children rush the shoreline chased by foamy waves.
We built monuments and carved men’s names
where beautiful children share happy games.
Beyon...
Tuesday 4th June 2024 8:35 am
Futility
Futility (apologies to Wilfred Owen)
Forget, forget,
Her rallying cry;
Forget, forget
The reason why;
Forget, forget
Our fathers lied,
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
—O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth's sleep at all?
Sunday 12th November 2023 10:26 am
Normandy Veterans at the Airport
They are old now, almost beyond age;
Pushed around, pinned into wheelchairs.
Though chaperoned, they seem unclaimed.
They hold up placards, give a wave
And do their best to summon up a grin,
Before we spirit them toward the beaches
Where, nearly eighty years ago,
They put their young lives on the line
To keep the locals and unborn safe.
We should salute and honour them,
...Monday 5th June 2023 7:31 am
Insult to Injury
https://www.writeoutloud.net/public/blogentry.php?blogentryid=127856
There’s a flower, that’s for Remembrance;
Poppy of Hope in the rat-race gutter,
Some ego trip by town hall plastic patriots,
Aimed to set our hearts a-flutter,
Whilst sentimental platitudes they parrot;
It might as well be on the Brighton Line,
As into oblivion it’s daily smeared and ground,
By t...
Friday 10th February 2023 11:31 am
Gaslight Charade
“Remembrance is our duty”, preachers scold.
The duty’s yours, not mine; my conscience? Clear.
I’ve stood on duty, rain, hail, freezing cold,
Protesting first the lies, then deaths, then tears.
Remembrance, once in quiet grief-struck thought,
Derides now, that their warm red blood had run.
The flower of our hope’s debased and mocked,
Out on parade with Strictly Tit and B...
Friday 11th November 2022 2:06 pm
Please Remember Me
For those who sleep from battles lost
And paid, for us, the ultimate cost
For all who came back from war
Forever scarred by what they saw
The lucky ones,
so they say
They got to see
another day
But their friends who fell
At the toll of death's bell
Still haunt their dreams
Upon the fields of screams
Where poppies now dwel...
Friday 11th November 2022 7:54 am
Poppy Rocks Bollocks
This poppy was recently made for me as an impromptu gift, by a young lady who had been researching her family tree, and had found that a male relative had served in the RAF in WW2. I will always treasure it.
I wrote the following probably ten years ago.
On Armistice Day, (which, by now, all should know,
Marks the end of World War Number One),
I remembered Them, as I sat...
Tuesday 8th November 2022 4:45 pm
The Last Call
As the yellow mist
rolls across the fields
of slaughter
The young man thinks
Of his unborn daughter
How would she have looked?
How would she have grown?
Would her heart have been full
From the love he had shown?
Would her smile have been his?
Would her eyes have been blue?
And shimmer in sunlight
like fresh morning dew?
Yet, he knew not her mother
Fo...
Sunday 14th November 2021 10:17 am
Don't Forget
The unknown soldier beckons
Don't forget, don't forget
The lost, who somewhere lie
Don't forget, don't forget
The grieving family ties
Don't forget, don't forget
The defeated & the broken
Don't forget, don't forget
with mental scars unspoken
Don't forget, don't forget
The veteran in the street
Don't forget...
Wednesday 10th November 2021 9:16 am
The Unknown Soldier's Prayer
The Unknown Soldier’s Prayer
I could be your husband, father, son.
The lost bones of another pointless war.
A flag to drape across my resting place,
transported from a distant, hostile shore.
I could have been a tinker, tailor, thief ,
lying here for a century and more,
those passing trades mean little to me - now
the angry guns have relinquished their roar.
...
Wednesday 11th November 2020 3:49 pm
The Old Garden Gate
A WWI remembrance poem
(First published online for Northern Life magazine 2018)
It creaked as he left:
The old garden gate
He’d promised to fix it
But now it was too late
Tearful in the doorway
His mother cries out,
‘Do it when you’re back, Billy!’
And of this she has no doubt
He waves,
And off to glory are the swathes
Of boys, and men in their pr...
Friday 6th November 2020 6:57 am
Elegy For A Ghost
Elegy For A Ghost
Some say ghosts are chilling things
Ethereal and fleeting
But they’re not
They are the empty chair
The pint not bought in a round
The hiss at the end of a telephone line
The deleting of a mobile number
They are the sad spaces
That once held you
On the terraces
At the bar
In the conversation
Ghosts are sad things
They h...
Thursday 18th April 2019 1:58 pm
In Memoriam
In Memoriam
The gravestones in this place are wet with tears
Of children, wives and husbands who have stood
Beside dark holes that swallow up their fears
Replacing ice water where once flowed blood.
November skies are grey and hold no lights,
The flowers flattened in a winter gale
That whips away dark thoughts the widow fights
To keep hidden behind her mourning veil.
...Thursday 4th April 2019 2:17 pm
A Poppy In Winter
A Poppy In Winter
November mists come down in shrouds of grey
and folk remember, with their poppies red,
the loss of sixteen million war dead
and how the guns fell silent on this day.
So who are you to deem to have a say
on whether I should honour those who bled
by crimson colours? – or perhaps, instead,
in remembrance there is another way.
For I would guess that mo...
Tuesday 6th November 2018 3:16 pm
We Shall Remember
41 million casualties since the war began
John Condon among them, died like a man
He was only 18 when he met his demise
Ypres, Belgium he finally closed his eyes
We shall remember
He wasn’t the youngest to serve in this plight
In Serbia Momčilo Gavrić claimed that right
Promoted to corporal instead of being at school
At eight years old he was the armies fuel.
...
Monday 20th November 2017 8:43 am
No Flowers on the Bridge
Life's a game of take & give
Just tell me how did it come to this?
They walked their way into the abyss
But I see no flowers, on the bridge?
The laughs, the screams
The night, far from your dreams
A city bows as it continues to live
But I see no flowers, on the bridge?
The sirens call and the thunders rolls
In a stranger, solace unfolds
How can your story ever be told?
But n...
Thursday 15th June 2017 6:24 pm
Gave Me Up To Tears
Gave Me Up To Tears
"And all my mother came into mine eyes
And gave me up to tears."
— William Shakespeare, Henry V
The air tastes of mashed potatoes
When she looks into your eyes
And you look back at the fear and hurt
And she says she’s sorry for dragging you here
And you tell her it’s nothing
Even though you were complaining
That very same thing on the drive h...
Sunday 29th January 2017 9:35 pm
Red Poppies On An Autumn Day
Red Poppies On An Autumn Day
Never forgotten – here to stay,
a symbol of the hurt and pain
where young men will forever lay.
The old man sells and we will pay
to wear a token for the slain -
never forgotten – here to stay.
Would they have approved? Who can say
If what was lost was worth the gain.
Red poppies on an autumn day
They had little choice ...
Saturday 5th November 2016 12:27 pm
a peaceful warrior
a peaceful warrior
next week
I’ll make a mark
to show my choice
and there will be
no hate
no fear
no injustice
In that decision
it will be
for the future
for the greater good
it will not be
for brutal killers
bigots
racists
terrorists
from over there
or right here
it will be everything
but that
it will be
fo...
Friday 17th June 2016 12:27 am
FOR ABSENT FRIENDS
Somewhere in between
the waking and the dream,
I can feel you close to me.
Just before times hands
reshape the desert sands,
I can feel you reach for me.
In the blink of tear stained eyes,
watching weary to the skies,
I can see you cry for me.
In the breaking of the dawn,
in the dew upon the lawn,
I can see you smile for me.
In the bright ray...
Tuesday 22nd September 2015 3:44 pm
Wounded
Wounded.
Black bullet hole wound
blooms red November petals.
Blood and remembrance.
Sunday 9th November 2014 4:08 pm
Isolated
Your touch still lingers on my skin like the warm yet cold breeze of the wind,
Your kiss heavy leaves an imprint on my lips like the moist rain that steadily drips,
Your laugh still gives me the bees in my gut like hiding from the storm in that little hut,
Your body close to mine in a gentle embrace like the love surrounding our little space,
Your voice calming an...
Wednesday 17th September 2014 5:27 pm
Flanders Field
Heroes of a nation, who would have knew
That they risked their lives for everyone, valiant and true. The darkness of the battlefield, will blind them all their lives
The images that they have seen shall remain upon their minds
Yet in this hour of war, they sheltered us with their ...
Tuesday 2nd September 2014 8:35 pm
It Is Nothing
But one single bullet, from barrel to throat,
Choked and opened the wounds of the world,
Unfurled in the seat of a phaeton,
Played on like the most tragic of tragedies,
Greek in essence but eastern in substance,
As Sophie wilts in the lap of Austria,
A single shot through the heart of a continent,
The blood racing fast to the carriage beneath,
Signals the start of relentless war lines,
It...
Monday 28th July 2014 11:51 pm
I waited ...
In the mist,
amazed at the helpless loneliness,
sadness was present to remember
especially when I loved you and now intend to deny
full of rain and wind, turn to screams your memories:
perhaps imagining that you understand how I feel
How I miss you!
I was not the cause of the pain ...
And I'll wait until it dries the dew;
until you have no m...
Thursday 4th July 2013 1:36 am
Azrael
Azrael
In hushed and reverent tones
we watched the daylight fade
until it winked out
in a final spark of twilight.
Heads bowed
we felt them slip away
all their bright energy
dissipating in the growing gloom.
Tears then
corroding and eating
at our souls
until there were
no more
saline teeth
chewing at
our memories.
...
Friday 3rd May 2013 10:27 am
Remembrance Observation
He punches at a name in stone
as if the warmth of knuckle and fist
could penetrate the cold,
a brother’s arm plunge deep
beyond the gilt
to find its home
curled up in sleep
upon an ocean bed
connect with flesh and bone.
Sunday 11th November 2012 1:14 pm
Why does mankind wage war and kill?
What is the purpose, why the pain
to live in hope and die in vain?
As mourning turns love lost - to blame,
and man repeats the vengeful game.
For lessons missed in histories pay
for dogma we shall die today,
for in our words and deeds we sow
a deathly seed we do not know.
So do we tar religions door
or those who send us off to war?
Who ...
Friday 11th November 2011 1:58 am
OLD SOLDIERS - a poem for Remembrance Day
Young man - mark them marching by,
Their medals catch the light.
Look and hold your head up high,
You'll see no finer sight.
Old men passing in their pride
Were once as young as you.
Now - as then - they're side by side,
But now they're growing few.
And should one chance to catch your eye,
Young man, don't look away;
In far-off fields their co...
Tuesday 8th November 2011 4:07 pm
I Veteran
I Veteran
I try,
Ten maybe fifteen years in a row to attend
It has been! I walk past at speed,
Anxiety rising within a throat of hurt,
My jaw clenched as I negotiate the crowd –
But my stride is slowed and I catch glimpses
Of the veterans in uniform,
And my tears are checked ...
Sunday 14th November 2010 1:15 pm
Beloved
And I would breathe life
into those lips that once kissed,
colour to the face that smiled,
bathe those sightless eyes with tears,
hydrate the ravaged corners of your mind
And if the drip of all my anguish left you still,
empty shell of all you were, no more
I would care for you in death
just as I cared for you before,
gently thread your hair with tender...
Monday 8th November 2010 11:10 pm
NOT A PATCH ON US
Lest – lest, pay heed lest
we for-get we are the best;
lose sight of Old England’s story
one of endless power and glory
blood-and-gutsy, primal, gory;
triumph in each foreign land.
Might - might, ours by right
just remember might is right!
None surpass the English Army
foes like Hitler – all are barmy
same for Mullah, same for Swami;
Christ is E...
Friday 5th November 2010 12:36 pm
Nine Eleven Tribute
Nine Eleven Tribute
No words of mine or others can change what went before
We can but stand in silence and remember them once more
Though years roll by without restraint and some images fade
The sights we saw upon that day are indelibly engraved
So hear a plea around the world to end all senseless feu...
Thursday 9th September 2010 7:16 pm
undercurrents
undercurrents
I only glimpse it now, so far away, but bright and clear.
The rapture of a fading world - another place, some other year.
Those nights of shattered moonlight strewn on marbled seas,
where frangipani whispers were caresses on the breeze.
From the shadow of the palms I watched you dance
the tideline, shed your silks, and with one glance
you robbed my soul and beckoned wit...
Tuesday 21st July 2009 2:23 pm
Two war poems (edited!)
In those final quickening hours
we sat, and weighed the snare-drum rhythm
of our failing hearts, sucking warmth from
close-pinched cigarettes and old memories.
Our sergeant paced, checked his watch for lies,
and ignored the muffled sobs disguised as coughs
- his whistle hanging heavy as a prayer.
Seconds fell like dominoes, and in the dark,
kisses fell on photographs an...
Friday 17th July 2009 12:06 pm
The Gift
The Gift
“You have his hands” they say.
Blunt, broad, and strong;
the rounded nails and heavy palms, his grip.
Some memory, stored within each line,
each fingertip, each scar, from half a life away.
Old-leather hard with work and age;
weather-carved and worn with every s...
Sunday 15th March 2009 11:34 am
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