I usually post one or two poems on Remembrance Day.
The 29th Battalion, Canadian Corps, 9 April 1917. Troops advance into no man's land at the Battle of Vimy Ridge.Tattered HillThe dawn came slowly and they wondered
How loud the guns
Non-stop they thundered
To spit upon the mob encumbered
Who chanced to pass that way
And of the men
Whose fate would fly there
Of the ones
Who did not die there
Of the crazed
That cursed and cried there
Came the trumpet's call
To die! To die!
Alone in rotten mud
To die! To die!
In a thick and frowzy flood
That surrounded all whose feet did step
Upon the heaped, collective mess.
To die!
No smiles amongst the pungent throng
No time to cast goodwill around
The ones that stuck
Propped up in muck
They'd die, but would not fall!
Surreal
To feel the devil's sting
That struck, infecting everything
And those who still continued breathing
And the corpses that the mud kept heaving
Would have no rest.
And when the day used up the sun
The darkness came
And swallowed up the ones
That death had left behind!
Bastard Reaper!
The men that suffered on condemned
Knew that you had not arrived for them.
Because the devil called your name
Instructing you to leave the sods that
Screamed to die
But screamed to die in vain!
And finally when the coffle throng
Upon the stale, black mud sat down
To count the ones who soldiered on
Remorse
How long does hell go on?
And why does the devil craft
The things that God and man
Both seek to squall upon?
Alas, the souls who screamed and weeped
Would wait 'til dawn
In hopes that they might sleep
Envelope me, oh numbing shroud
The voices call for death!
Stephen Redgwell – 2005