The letters…

Heavy the heart
Painful the burden
The messenger’s part
In passing the word on.

Deep are the creases
That now line his brow
The pain never ceases
It’s personal somehow.

His was the book
Which counted the dead
But each killing took
His heart’s peace instead.

They were his men
He loved them like sons
They’ll not sing again
Silenced by guns.

The letters he wrote
To tell of each death
Families he smote
By words of last breath.

The killing decided
There’s no final amount
Messenger lies dead
One more for the count.

©Joe Wilson – The letters…2015

The numbers rise…

Walked I along this Autumn morn
midst trees with bright red berries borne
where once men stood with with tanks as shields
on Europe’s bloodiest battlefields.

And in extraordinary Worldly War
friends kill friends who’re friends no more
as lines are drawn and power revealed
where once such things had lain concealed.

How many men and women died
for pious thoughts and national pride
whose wasted lives now lie beneath
that trampled o’er when we cross heath.

The bodies fall, the numbers rise
more victims of political lies
and yet some people still would fight
convinced that they are in the right.

Twas ever thus and shall remain
the populace feel power’s disdain
yet even now we fight their wars
with they as pimps and we their whores.

©Joe Wilson – The numbers rise…2015

Self-made Armageddon…

And the days were spent in wonder
at all the horrors He’d seen
He sent unholy flooding and chaos
To wash the planet clean.

To see if change was ever made
He waited then two thousand years
But horror still was all around
And what He saw proved all His fears.

Can man not recognise his fate
can he not see when he is wrong
can man not see of His design
that words like peace and love mean strong.

The fiery pits that destroy our Earth
aren’t in the depths of Hell
they’ll be the fire and cordite
of that last exploding shell!!

©Joe Wilson – Self-made Armageddon… 2014

They also served…

Lest we forget...
Lest we forget…

My tribute to others who fell in the First World War

 

 

They said they couldn’t kill another
a man a soldier might call a brother
but clearing death from sodden trenches
repairing trucks with rusty wrenches.
These men did their bit too.

Many a shot mowed these men down
in trenches filled with awful sound
they fell and died, their blood as red
and in the end were still as dead.
These men did their bit too.

Some men can’t fight no matter what
so other work was what they got
and midst the cordite battle smell
they picked dead comrades as they fell.
These men did their bit too.

Four long years the battles raged
by Armistice young men had aged
so many young men had sadly died
pacifist stretcher men by their side.
These men did their bit too.

Pacifists choose simply not to kill
Clearing bodies became their great skill
patching up wounded and moving them back
under the vilest of mortar attack.
These men did their bit too.

Soldiers died that we might live
reconcile now and forgive
peaceful men did also die
honour them too where they do lie.
These men did their bit too.

 

©Joe Wilson – They also served… 2014