Eleventh hour, day, month and
Now we're not fighting anymore:
After four long, bloody years,
An end to this endless war.
So, I think about my mates
Who paid the cruel cost,
In smashed, damaged bodies,
Minds and lives lost.
I look across no man's land,
That once treacherous divide,
To wire and trenches on what
Was once the enemies side.
I think of Karl, Dieter, Fritz, Hans,
So very many nameless others,
Helmut, Heinz, Josep, Pieter, Franz,
Fathers, sons, lovers, brothers,
Who, like us, answered a call,
For a senseless, worthless cause.
And paid the butcher's bill in that
Most cruel, and vicious of wars.
All of that Brotherhood of Warriors
Which crosses any national divide,
For in mutilation and death
There is no longer any side,
United by sorrow and pain
Against spurious nationalism
And the politics of the insane.
They will have their conference
The desk top warriors of the rear,
Those leaders who will talk
But never ever really hear:
Will feast and toast each other,
Ignoring the horrendous losses
They've hidden away at rest in
Fields of simple white crosses.
That land torn and battered,
Soaked in blood and gore
Will, not so very long after, be
Cloaked in Poppies once more.
Scarlet Flanders Poppies
We wear to remind us of our debt,
Through those oncoming years,
Should we ever start to Forget.
