OLD FRIENDS LAST REQUEST

Do you see those footprints in the snow?
That young childs sledge? The rose-red glow?
They once were ours, and memories lend
Of age-long friendship, never end.
She has no grief: attends no worries:
My time stands still for her it hurries
That lad, with the tree-climbers graz-ed knee
--He once was you: he once was me.
That girl, joining footballers, just for fun
--Things havent changed since we were young.
Youth and Innocence, our Own Small World,
Til evil snaked around us, curled

Now young men boast of loves, careers
For them the future holds no fears.
Made bomb-proof, shell-proof by decades retort
Wars again an adventure; killing, sport.
So, they, like us, drawn by battle-suns glory
Wont heed an old mans tragic story
We who, once, a healthy, lively, strong
Cannot help but sleep beneath the Somme
But, you, the Left, can tell, must warn
Of stormy threat to springs new dawn.
Our rose-red fades, grazed knees now rot
But our message must live, neer be forgot

From us make them learn, let then receive
The legacy those before them leave
Tell them of reality, of loss, of pain
That war is fruitless, of who remain
If not for them, then speak for us
For what we fought for, died and lost

Let their spring, let their skies stay fine
Let not clouds of fourteen spoil thirty-nine

NOW POPPIES GROW

Here, once, a soldier died in stalemate slow
Now where he fell, bright poppies grow.
Once horror reigned and death was rife,
Missing comrades haunted soldiers life

The shells, the noise, the battle throng,
A whistle foretold sleep eternal long;
For, over the top, he rejoined dead friends
In that sweet peace which never ends

Eighteen or twenty, maybe less,
Soldiers age of death, upon that crest.
A wasteful loss, a generation flown
There, lie many, still Unknown

A chilling hush fills the mourning air
They rest here, safe, without age or care
Beneath long grass, under air so still
Peace hides their graves, in trench, on hill

The most worthy monument? A poppied field.
To the carnage? The Iron Harvest yield
But from where the birds in war have flown,
The ghosts of Ypres and Somme live on..