The Awful, Awful Cost of War

PAD Challenge day 11:
For today’s prompt, write a description poem.
Pick someone or something to describe.
Get in depth, or just brush along the surface.


So our young men and women can go off to work...

and come home to mother's supper-soup...

Beneath your ribs

Pulses the heart

Of a boy,
A brother,

A mother’s son

But, instead of

A baseball bat

They are teaching you

How to hold a gun

And on your cheek,

Your smooth, young cheek

Instead of a kiss

From a sweetheart dear

You are about

To taste firsthand

The awful gall

Of mud-and-blood tear

And many of you

Will never see

The Freedom

You are fighting for

Your boyish vim and

Sympathy

The awful, awful

Cost of war

© Janet Martin

The Truth
by
Archibald Lampman

Remembering...

 It is Remembrance Day in Canada,
Veteran's Day in the USA

(Today we say our thank-yous
...each day may we live our Thank-yous)

Sometimes I forget

… I butter bread

And fill my head

With dreams and such

While offspring of

A soldier’s love

Makes uncommon,

Life’s common touch

…how those who fell

Loved, oh so well

The life of morrow’s

Girl and boy

And how the cost

Of what they lost

Pays for the freedom

We enjoy

*** 

Sometimes I forget

… I butter bread

And fill my head

With dreams and such

While offspring of

A Saviour’s love

Makes uncommon,

Life’s common touch

His blood-drops fell

To save from hell

The soul whose life

Will never cease

He bore the price

Of sacrifice

To pay for freedom

We call Peace

© Janet Martin


Easy Service by Edgar A. Guest

When an empty sleeve or a sightless eye
Or a legless form I see,
I breathe my thanks to my God on High
For His watchful care o'er me.
And I say to myself, as the cripple goes
Half stumbling on his way:
I may brag and boast, but that brother knows
Why the old flag floats to-day.

I think as I sit in my cozy den
Puffing one of my many pipes
That I've served with all of my fellow men
The glorious Stars and Stripes.
Then I see a troop in the faded blue
And a few in the dusty gray,
And I have to laugh at the deeds I do
For the flag that floats to-day.

I see men tangled in pointed wire,
The sport of the blazing sun,
Mangled and maimed by a leaden fire
As the tides of battle run,
And I fancy I hear their piteous calls
For merciful death, and then
The cannons cease and the darkness falls,
And those fluttering things are men.

Out there in the night they beg for death,
Yet the Reaper spurns their cries,
And it seems his jest to leave them breath
For their pitiful pleas and sighs.
And I am here in my cosy room
In touch with the joys of life,
I am miles away from the fields of doom
And the gory scenes of strife.

I never have vainly called for aid,
Nor suffered real pangs of thirst,
I have marched with life in its best parade
And never have seen its worst.
In the flowers of ease I have ever basked,
And I think as the Flag I see
How much of service from some it's asked,
How little of toil from me.

Edgar Albert Guest

Because We Should Never Forget

To those who gave their all,

Or took the risk, 

To those who still do,

So we can go to work

And home

To church,

To school,

With shoes.

So we can travel 

Or marvel

As we watch the day unravel

In a garden,

On a hilltop,

Or from picnics in the park

So we can sit with kin a bit

Beneath the star-frothed dark

Or stroll through

Supermarkets

With shopping baskets

So we can cook,

Bake,

And linger

With loved ones

After dinner

Over tea and cake

So we can stop

At Hospitals,

Greenhouses,

The mechanic,

Coffee-shops,

Or grandma’s house

Without

So much

As a second thought

Thank-you

© Janet Martin

Where Apple Trees Are Blooming...

The cannons cease and the darkness falls,

And those fluttering things are men. Edgar A. Guest

Phoenix Rising invites us to use another poets words to inspire our own. 

 

The orchard is a palace where the apple trees are blooming
Nature fulfills promises that only spring can keep
Cold autumnal deathbeds after winter's icy grooming
Spawns a metamorphosis where fields of flowers sleep

I stroll the early morning where the lilacs are adorning
Twigs that seemed but lifeless sprigs before awakening
Our oohs and aahs and the applause of tongue-tied beggar-barons
Contentment's luxury is free and not a purchased Thing

...And I can't help but think of those who fled with almost nothing
Save the clothes upon their backs and children in their arms
Never mind that skies are kind and apple trees are blooming
Evil has no season;bent on ugliness that harms

Here among the song of birds and freedom bought with bodies
Hope is juxtaposed like spring, with suffering and death 
And mingled with the virgin hues of greens and blues, gold, purple
Runs the blood of fallen comrades yielding their last breath

The cannons cease and the darkness falls and those fluttering things are men
And boys and girls that will not see another spring again

Janet~

Lest We Forget...

Easy Service

When an empty sleeve or a sightless eye

Or a legless form I see,

I breathe my thanks to my God on High

For His watchful care o'er me.

And I say to myself, as the cripple goes

Half stumbling on his way:

I may brag and boast, but that brother knows

Why the old flag floats to-day.

I think as I sit in my cozy den

Puffing one of my many pipes

That I've served with all of my fellow men

The glorious Stars and Stripes.

Then I see a troop in the faded blue

And a few in the dusty gray,

And I have to laugh at the deeds I do

For the flag that floats to-day.

I see men tangled in pointed wire,

The sport of the blazing sun,

Mangled and maimed by a leaden fire

As the tides of battle run,

And I fancy I hear their piteous calls

For merciful death, and then

The cannons cease and the darkness falls,

And those fluttering things are men.

Out there in the night they beg for death,

Yet the Reaper spurns their cries,

And it seems his jest to leave them breath

For their pitiful pleas and sighs.

And I am here in my cosy room

In touch with the joys of life,

I am miles away from the fields of doom

And the gory scenes of strife.

I never have vainly called for aid,

Nor suffered real pangs of thirst,

I have marched with life in its best parade

And never have seen its worst.

In the flowers of ease I have ever basked,

And I think as the Flag I see

How much of service from some it's asked,

How little of toil from me.

Edgar Albert Guest :

No 'Free' in Freedom (a re-tweaked re-post)

Somber and steady up a tree-lined street

A stream of solemn soldier-ranks are led,

As sun-beams dance to the drummer’s beat

Filtering through the branches overhead

Beyond the tears and past the arc of trees

The music of a small child’s laughter swells

Stark contrast to the mourning infantry

Bowing beneath the tolling of the bells

Then, as the weeping bag-pipe song exalts

The melody of sweet Amazing Grace

Then, as the banner-covered coffin halts

For it has reached its final resting place

Then, as the last note fades the cannon flies

Its echo fills the air from shore to shore

Yet pales in the wake of a mother’s cries

“There is no ‘free’ in freedom anymore

Put down your banners, lay down your guns

My sweet baby boy has died

Tributes, salutes, many battles won

Won’t bring him back” she cried

“Take away all the roses for nothing will be

Like it ever was before

The price of freedom is too hard for me

There is no ‘free’ in freedom anymore”

Freedom (part two)

Upon Golgotha’s rocky skull-strewn trail

A teaming, screaming throng of hatred surged

Swarming around a form blood-bathed and pale

Upon a place called Calvary they converged

Wild, wild with rage wages hate’s vicious roar

No one remains to defend Love unbound

Stark contrast to the cheers and praise before

Where palm-tree branches waved and decked the ground

Then as the violent blows of steel on steel

Accentuates the horror on the hill

Then, as they drive in hatred nail by nail

Against Love’s cries of ‘Father, not My will’

Then, as they praised and raised Life’s blood-stained cross

In victory, death’s maddened thousands roar

As Mary, his mother weeps for her loss

“There is no ‘free’ in freedom anymore

Take away your hammers, lay down your swords

My dear precious son has died”

As the lightning flashed and the thunder roared

There at His feet she cried

“Take away all your hatred, your jeers and chanting

For you have slain my Lord

Take away all your weapons and cease your ranting

There is no ‘free’ in freedom anymore”

There is no ‘free’ in freedom, Love pays a price

Where hellish horrors run

There is no ‘free’ in freedom, its sacrifice

Save in Christ, is never done

There is no ‘free’ in freedom, red the river

That flows on its behalf

There is no 'free' in freedom; its signature

A blood-stained autograph

Janet Martin