The plunging limbers over the shattered track Racketed with their rusty freight, Stuck out like many crowns of thorns, And the rusty stakes like sceptres old To stay the flood of brutish men Upon our brothers dear. The wheels lurched over sprawled dead But pained them not, though their bones crunched, Their shut mouths […]
WW1 Centenary
The Big Push
after Sir Herbert James Gunn ‘The Eve of the Battle of the Somme’ Would you believe it, there’s a bloke out there singing ‘When You Come to the End of a Perfect Day’. His audience, a sixty-pounder crew, stand round bleeding from the ears. The Boche are all but finished, apparently – I heard they’re […]
To My Brother
Your battle-wounds are scars upon my heart, Received when in that grand and tragic “show” You played your part Two years ago, And silver in the summer morning sun I see the symbol of your courage glow- That Cross you won Two years ago, Though now again you watch the shrapnel fly, And hear […]
For the Fallen
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children, England mourns for her dead across the sea. Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit, Fallen in the cause of the free. Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres. There is music in the midst of desolation […]
All the Hills and Vales Along
All the hills and vales along Earth is bursting into song, And the singers are the chaps Who are going to die perhaps. O sing, marching men, Till the valleys ring again, Give your gladness to earth’s keeping, So be glad, when you are sleeping. Cast away regret and rue, Think what you are marching […]
John McCrae
Born in Canada, John McCrae (1872 – 1918) was a poet, doctor and artist. He was appointed as a field surgeon in the Canadian Field Artillery in 1914, treating wounded soldiers on the Western Front, and serving on the guns. Exhausted by the long years of the War, McCrae fell ill with pneumonia and meningitis […]
In Flanders Fields
In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie, In […]
An Irish Airman Forsees His Death
I know that I shall meet my fate Somewhere among the clouds above; Those that I fight I do not hate, Those that I guard I do not love; My county is Kiltartan Cross, My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor, No likely end could bring them loss Or leave them happier than before. Nor law, nor duty […]
from ‘Tucked in where they fell’
‘Tucked in’ isn’t quite how we’d put it. We weren’t plumped up neatly in bed. If you ‘fell’ as one piece you were lucky, Not dismembered before you were dead. We wore dog-tags of vulcanised fibre But those need their ‘dog’ to stay whole Or to keep enough bone to be tied on Not be […]
from Letter for the Unknown Soldiers
I see. This is the shape remembrance takes. To get it, the scale had to be brought home. Imagine them moving in one long continuous column, four abreast … as the column’s head reaches the Cenotaph the last four men would be at Durham. In India, that column would stretch from Lahore to Delhi. Whichever […]
from War Poem
1. There is a war going on in my country. In all the years I have lived in this body, there has been no peace. My mother still has hope in her heart, she keeps a suitcase packed just in case. This whole life we have been waiting for our flight to be called. In […]
from Rising
In Mosul, Homs and eyeless Gaza kids swarm the streets of the dismembered caliphate spouting freedom and riches, styling with AKs and PSG 10, theatres of dreaming and war: the kops and graveyards of FIFA’s planet are stiff with creaming boys. This time it’s oil, not markets. This time it’s oil, not borders. This time […]
Das Spiel – Weihnachten 1914
Es ist so kalt. Die Zeilen dieses Gedichts sinken in den unversöhnlichen Schlamm. Keine weiße Weste. Dämmerung eines erstarrenden Tages. Die Waffen frieren fest in den Händen der Viererkette. Der Mond hängt in der Luft wie ein Ball abgewehrt von einem zitternden Torwart. Alles, was die Jungs heute machen wollen ist Schießen, Verteidigen, Stürmen. Licht […]
Le Match: 25 Décembre 1914
Il fait si froid. Les lignes de ce poème s’enfoncent dans la boue implacable. Score vierge. L’aube, un froid à mourir. Les armes gèlent dans les mains de la ligne de défense. La lune est suspendue dans les airs comme un ballon frappé par un gardien grelottant. Tout ce que ces garçons veulent faire aujourd’hui […]
De match: Kerstdag, 1914
Het is zo koud. De regels van dit gedicht zinken In de niets ontziende modder. Iedereen doelwit. Ochtend van een moordend koude dag. De wapens bevriezen In de handen van een zoneverdediging. De maan hangt als een bal in de lucht Te hoog getrapt door een rillende doelman. Het enige wat deze jongens vandaag willen […]
The Game: Christmas Day, 1914
It is so cold. The lines of this poem are sinking Into the unforgiving mud. No clean sheet. Dawn on a perishing day. The weapons freeze In the hands of a flat back four. The moon hangs in the air like a ball Skied by a shivering keeper. All these boys want to do today […]
The Wind on the Downs
I like to think of you as brown and tall, As strong and living as you used to be, In khaki tunic, Sam Brown belt and all, And standing there and laughing down at me. Because they tell me, dear, that you are dead, Because I can no longer see your face, You have not […]