ANZUK FORCE

Tags

28th ANZUK Brigade, 8th Division 2nd AIF, ANZUK Force, Australian bush poetry, Australian poet, Fall of Singapore, poem, poetry, Singapore

𝐀𝐍𝐙𝐔𝐊 𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐂𝐄

They come once more to Singapore,
To deter those who would wage war.
The locals see their garb and guns
Have little changed — these are the sons
Perhaps of those who were brought low;
But that was thirty years ago.

The Aussies, Kiwis, British boys,
Their distant Queen once more deploys,
As she plans to give up her best —
Retreat in order to the West.

Now fifty years have passed and most
Have left — have given up the ghost.
Their shoulder flashes slowly fade —
Like memories of their brigade.

— D.N. O’Brien

Alice

Tags

ANZUK Force, Australian poet, Australian traditional poetry, Avondale bar, Formal poetry, poem, poetry, Sembawang Strip, Singapore bar girls

Alice

Was in a bar, a dingy dive,
That Alice worked – just twenty five,
A bar girl, by grief driven mad.
A Yankee sailor, handsome lad,
She’d tell me was her absent beau:
“The ships are in – I want you go
And find him – bring him here to me.”
Each time this was her tearful plea.
And humour her, each time I would,
For in her heart the girl was good.

“He come – I know he will!” she’d cry.
“Alice, I’ve looked – not yet.” I’d lie.
Her son they’d taken from her breast;
Mad Alice never more would rest
Until she saw his father’s face.
At closing time she’d leave the place
And make her way through midnight’s gloom
Back to her wretched rented room,
And at her shrine, prayer candles burn;
And wait for her love’s safe return.

Carrier

Tags

ANZUK Force, HMS Terror Singapore, limerick, Limerick poem, Limerick poetry, poem, poetry, Sembawang shipyards, Sembawang Strip, Singapore, USS Enterprise

I drank beer with some of the guys
Who crewed her, but now her demise
Is near – she can rest;
She was one of the best.
Vale USS Enterprise.

USS Enterprise Decommissioned

Kranji

Tags

121 Signal Squadron, ANZUK Force, Australian traditional poetry, Kranji, poem, poetry, Singapore, Somerset Maugham, Straits of Johore

Those long remembered scented nights
Beneath the glow of Kranji’s lights,
Beside the pool, where once had danced
The girls the boys had once romanced.

The place still had the magic then,
And I’d imagine Maugham with pen
In that white house across the straits
As he wrote tales of men – their fates,

As sun, slow sinking, set the scene
On old Malaya warm and green,
And vanished slow, the grand old ways
As Empire lived its twilight days.