Small War Couplets

Tags

Afghanistan war, Australian poet, Futile wars, Kalashnikov AK-47, poem, poetry, Rhyming couplets, taliban, Unwinnable wars

Small War Couplets

When you can’t tell the foe from your friend,
History tells us – such wars never end.

But we’re winning – we’ll banish the foe!
If you do, he’ll return when you go.

We have rockets and choppers and drones!
But the Taliban have their smart phones.

His insurgency, with science, we’ll stifle.
He’ll just hide in the hills with his rifle.

But I’m telling you – we have the gear!
And your fighters – are they without fear?

But we’re winning in Afghanistan!
No you’re not – though you did get a tan.

What! A tribesman! Should I fear a peasant?
Being shot from long range isn’t pleasant.

A Kalashnikov! – that’s an old gun!
It will still put a hole in you son.

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A Hero Dies

Tags

Australian poet, Courage in war, Formal poetry, poem, poetry, sonnet, Spenserian sonnet, Unsung war heroes, War heroes

A Hero Dies

Oh yes, he was a hero – that is true.
But in that conflict there were thousands more.
The recognized among them are but few –
A careless hand deals out the cards of war.
Those who still live, and those now buried bore
That burden, and returned to start again;
They’d not let bitterness bite at their core.
Our hero rose above those common men,
(Or should I say uncommon) even then
He didn’t show what he had locked inside.
But came defeat – and later, that was when
What gnawed at him, no longer could he hide.
A hero? – sure, such men are spawned in wars;
They’ve measures both of courage and of flaws.

Head Shot

Tags

Australian poet, Australian traditional poetry, Formal poetry, Head-shot, poem, poetry, shot in the head, War, war movies

There is no pause when one is dead.
When well-aimed bullets pierce one’s head
One doesn’t for a moment stand
With startled look or gesture grand.
Unlike the actors at the flicks,
One plummets like a ton of bricks.

{First appeared in TRINACRIA issue #13, 2015}

Hill 1054

Tags

2/25th Battalion AIF, Australian 7th Division AIF, Australian bush poetry, Australian poet, Australian traditional poetry, Mazraat Ech Chouf, poem, poetry, Syrian Campaign ww2

“Who? V.C. Williams? – Yes, I knew the bloke.”
The old man lit his pipe – savoured the smoke.
He paused a moment, seemed quite deep in thought,
And then he spoke: “It was the French we fought –
The Vichy French – in Syria, a land
Much like our own, out west – dust, rock, and sand.
So V.C. Williams used to say, you know.
He’d say: “This bloody country wouldn’t grow
Much more than saltbush.” – like from where he came.
Yes, V.C. Williams thought it much the same.
In ’41 it was – eighth of July.
It seems like yesterday – how the years fly.
He was beside me in that final fight.
We charged with bayonets fixed and took the height.
He’d joined, he said, to get a taste of war.
We buried him on hill ten fifty four.”

{In memory of Pte. V.C. Williams, C Company 2/25th Battalion 7th Division A.I.F. – Killed in Action, Hill 1054 Syria 8th July 1941 and of Pte. A. N. O’Brien of the same company, Wounded in Action the same day, and in memory of the 26 other members of the unit killed or wounded during the taking of Hill 1054. This was the last action against the Vichy French in Syria – they surrendered 3 days later. The Australians had suffered 1,500 killed and wounded, the French over 6,000}

Bougainville

Tags

Arawa, Australian bush poetry, Australian traditional poetry, Bougainville Copper Limited, Bougainville Island, Bougainville War, Panguna, poem, poetry

So quick to strike are the seeds of war
And the harvest reaped is bitter.
An emerald jewel with a fatal flaw,
For a speck of hatred lay at its core
For the progress made and the rule of law
When the treasure had lost its glitter.

How many of you in your graves lie dead?
How many lives were shattered?
The coral sands now stained with red,
And the villages flaming as you fled
From the smothering smoke as your country bled –
To the four winds you were scattered.

The mine in the mountains gone to waste
And the towns where we lived all burned.
Repent at leisure for deeds in haste
For rebellion’s cup is with poison laced
As men go mad as your blood they taste
And too late is the lesson learned.

Where are you John, and Ambrose too?
Did you survive this madness?
And Bilou and Tioni, are they with you?
Tell me, who are left of our old crew?
Though I have asked, none said, none knew;
Seems all that’s left is sadness.

And what of the island I first saw
With the Crown Prince Range enshrouded
With cloud that turned to the smoke of war
As the future burned and the bullets tore –
Can it be plucked from the devil’s maw?
Is its fate forever clouded?

Hector

Tags

Achilles, Anger of Achilles, Aphrodite, Apollo, Cypris, Death of Hector, Greek Mythology, Hector, Hector's body, Homer, Ilion, poem, poetry, Priam, sonnet, Spenserian sonnet, The Iliad, Trojan War, Troy

Achilles’ anger was unquenched, and so,
Three times each day he dragged him through the dirt.
Yet he remained untarnished head to toe –
No bloodied flesh, no broken bones, no hurt
Showed on unblemished skin. Still and inert,
As if asleep, and no decay was seen.
It seemed by unseen armour he was girt,
For Cypris and Apollo kept him clean.
His wounds they’d closed, since, bloody and obscene,
His body had been taken from the field.
He’d fallen to the bronze so bright and keen,
Yet now the cuts that killed him were all healed.
Achilles longed to tear him limb from limb,
Whilst grieving Priam dreamed of burning him.

{Pic – The Triumph of Achilles by Franz von Matsch. {from Wikipedia}}

This Day

Tags

ANZAC Day, Australian bush poetry, Australian poet, Australian traditional poetry, Formal poetry, poem, poetry, sonnet, Spenserian sonnet

The soldiers, those who’ve died, moulder away
Beneath their gravestones – flesh and bones don’t last.
Their souls perhaps look down upon this day
And see the flags that flutter at half-mast;
The thinning ranks so proudly marching past –
With many from the rear, now at the fore.
The souls of all the soldiers who have passed
Away – just yesterday, and all before:
The dead who died at home, and those at war.
Perhaps they all gaze on – each mother’s son,
Remembering the smoke, the cannon’s roar,
The corpses in the trenches overrun.
They won our freedom, and they bore the cost;
And none know better – how it can be lost.

Shaggy Ridge

Tags

7th Div AIF, Battle of Shaggy Ridge, Bird of Paradise, Crater Hill, Finisterre Range, Green Sniper's Pimple, Japanese 78th Infantry Regiment, Japanese mountain gun, John's Knoll, Kankiryo Saddle, New Guinea, Ramu Valley Campaign, Surinam River New Guinea, The Pimple, Trevor's Knoll, World War 2

“The Pimple” was the name they gave
This blasted peak – this lofty grave.
I stand where kunai grass grows tall;
I’m careful lest I slip and fall.
How could men on this summit fight?
How could they scale this soaring height
Whilst from its top, from mountain guns,
Poured out the wrath of Nippon’s sons?

The jungle’s grown back on one side
And on the other old scars hide
Beneath the grass; it clothes the graves,
As with the wind it weeps and waves.
But in my mind armed men I see;
A soldier’s voice, it speaks to me –
My father’s words, the lost years bridge,
Here on the spine of Shaggy Ridge.

Five hundred Japanese sleep here
And fifty diggers slumber near.
I wonder – was it worth the price?
I spy a Bird of Paradise.

{In memory of the men of the 7th Division, Australian Imperial Force, and the Battle of Shaggy Ridge, October 1943, and of Allen Noel O’Brien Sgt 7th Div AIF}

The Greek Mercenaries

Tags

Alexander the Great, Australian poet, Australian traditional poetry, Battle of the Granicus River, Greek Mercenaries, poem, poetry

In ranks they stood and made no sound;
The Persians were all dead –
The ones who chose to hold their ground;
The others had all fled.

For traitor’s lives nobody cared;
Dispatched they were to graves.
The few miraculously spared,
In chains they went as slaves.

Their masters promised gold and bread;
Their loyalty bought for loot.
Now harnessed to a plough or dead,
They’re paid in bitter fruit.

Green Men

Tags

Australian poet, Australian traditional poetry, Jungle green, Jungle greens, poem, poetry

The green men came on through the rain and the mud;
Through the green that was stained with the blackest of blood.
And the fragments of iron from the leaden sky rained
As a fragment of green in the vast green they gained.

But the green that was gained was soon taken away,
And the green men lay crumpled and cold on the clay,
And the blood on the green, it became darker still,
As the green men, in silence, they counted their kill.