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?

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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.

The Pink Bits

Tags

Australian Imperial Forces, Australian poet, Australian traditional poetry, Colonialism, poem, poetry, The British Empire, The Pink Bits

It was in an imperial army he fought;
For the pink bits were ours, and that’s what he was taught.
Now the pink bits are gone and they’ll never come back,
For they’ve fallen, and festered, and faded to black.

Vercingetorix

Tags

Ancient Rome, australia traditional poetry, australian formal poetry, Battle of Alesia, Battle of Gergovia, Formal poetry, Gallic Tribes, Gaul, Julius Caesar, Roman Triumph, Vercingetorix

Armed with spear and bow and sword,
So advanced the Gallic horde.
At Gergovia struck a blow;
Laid the Roman legions low.
At Alesia – fortified,
There the legions, they defied;
But besieged by Roman might,
Weakened, they gave up the fight.
Vercingetorix the bold,
On his horse adorned with gold,
Swiftly then to Caesar went;
Rode a circle round his tent,
Then dismounted at his feet,
Flung his armour, took his seat
On now uncontested ground;
Looked to Caesar, made no sound.
So to Rome he was conveyed;
In captivity he stayed.
Soon, said Caesar: “While he lives,
To the tribes, false hope he gives.
He, to Rome, no loyalty feigns,
At my Triumph, bound in chains,
Let this King, to all the Gauls,
Show how low their saviour falls;
Then to foil his Gallic tricks,
Strangle, Vercingetorix.

Iraq Etc.

Tags

Arab Spring, Australian poet, Australian traditional poetry, Invasion of Iraq, Knee-jerk reactions, limerick, Limerick poem, Limerick poetry, Middle East chaos, Middle East wars, poem, poetry, Radical Islam

Emotions may land you in trouble.
They shatter; they burst like a bubble.
Look over the oceans –
Acts based on emotions
Bring misery, carnage and rubble.

HMS Terror

Tags

HMS Terror, HMS Terror naval base, Lion of Singapore, poem, poetry, Sembawang docks, Singapore, Traditional Australian poetry, Woodlands

Since 1696 nine ships of the Royal Navy have had the name
“HMS Terror”. The sixth HMS Terror explored the Antarctic and Arctic before being lost in the ice. She is mentioned in Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”. The last HMS Terror was the naval base at Sembawang in Singapore ( a so called stone frigate) from 1945 to 1975.

By “Terror” known – the name they proudly bore;
At Sembawang the last was built.
She languished there beside this foreign shore;
Her namesakes sinking in the silt.

For centuries they sailed for England’s pride;
By wind and screw they sallied forth.
Nine ships, and then this last she died,
And none will bear the name henceforth.

Three hundred years of “Terror”, proudly shown
Upon the prows of England’s ships.
As changing times throughout the East dethrone,
From Empire’s grasp a jewel slips.

A symbol of how transient the gains
Of crumbling queens and navies too.
This isle no more will hear foreign refrains
As sailors march in proud review.

For all must leave – to home and kin they must
Return, on ships of other names.
HMS Terror crumbles into dust;
The Lion at last, its prey it claims.