Dear All,
This time of year to me means rembering the first day of the Somme
Here's a poem about vets remembering the horrors of war from a distance..
C&C most welcome
Julian Duffus
IHR/SAS
LONDON UNIVERSITY
MEMORIES
Locked in the walnut wrinkled brows,
Lie images of death and carnage,
Dancing their macabre twist down the decades.
The noise and din of battle,not dimmed by the flow of time.
Men ancient shrunken,but not diminished,
Remember as if that bright July morning as if but yesterday.
That day commenced clear the birds dawn chorus
Rudely interrupted by the roar of Guns.
Eager they where to be off,
Up over the top,
Confident that they would win
Be part of the "BIG PUSH"
This was to be the war ending battle.
Eighteen Orderly ranks where formed,
The First to go would soon perish as would the rest ,
Yet all that was to be done was to wait their turn to die.
Amid the screaming of those that had gone before.
Caught on wire,Ripped by shrapnel, torn by bullets.
Not quick and clean and painless, but with stomach churning
slowness the life of Britain's Youth Ebbed away.
We see it on the screen the matchstick man in black and white,
falling over,But to those that where there He was Tom or Bill
a friend,Their memories are in colour overlaid with stereo
sound
The Record in their minds never stops
What a way to earn that shilling a day.
by Julian Duffus
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