The fighting is over.
Put down your gun.
Then look around you.
Tell me – who’s won?
The cities are flattened,
wreckage glints in the sun.
Look all around here.
Which side has won?
The soldiers go home.
They follow the sun.
They look all around.
Has anyone won?
They fought for their countries,
every daughter and son.
When we have peace;
the war will be won.
In response to November prompt Remembrance Day.
Image from Peace.fm website
We remember the fallen,
Those left behind.
We honour their service,
And why they died.
They paid with their lives,
So we could have more.
They fought and they died
In the War to End Wars.
Lest we forget.
In response to November prompt Remembrance Day.
Photo from Pixabay
For five years across the fields
Brutal shells crashed down.
Destruction claimed a savage cost
In every ruined town.
Lethal waves of metal rained,
Stole eight million men.
And when the guns fell silent
They said, “No war again!”
But the hearts of men are dark,
War runs through their veins.
It seems that peace is fragile
Compared with wartime’s aims.
In response to November prompt Remembrance Day
Teacher’s note: When the First World War ended on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day, 1918, everyone called it “the war to end all wars”. Using this poem, students can discuss why wars break out and how we can avoid them in future.
They’d hoped he’d be back for Christmas –
the lights shining down on him, the tree
somehow shielding off the horror. A break.
The family hadn’t seen him as a soldier,
in his uniform, among harvested paddocks,
the dried stubble that pricked your legs.
Arriving home, he said Merry Christmas,
hugged people and slapped them on the back.
Wandered about the place, eyes crinkled
with strain, lines dug
into his forehead. So young, he seemed
to be either laughing or very sad
as though, in between,
there was nothing.
In response to November prompt Remembrance Day.
As a sleepy Moon yawns, “Good morning, Sun”,
The rising Sun whispers. “Good night, dear Moon”.
And Sally laughs, it seems such fun,
When Daddy sings his favourite tune
To Sally, she is Daddy’s daughter,
Watching clouds seek out the deep blue sea,
to gather drinking water.
And all of this in the month of June,
As I stare up high at their red balloon.
Before a gentle breeze sends them on their way
To a timeless land, where dreams do play.
And when I wake from my dreamland rest,
My pillow reveals, a hollow nest . . .
where thoughts and dreams did interplay
Once night had found out where I did lay,
Until daybreak. As slowly, gently, each one is brushed away
Like cobwebs. Finite particles . . .
Fragments, from life’s infinite array.
Then throughout the day my mind is soothed,
as other memories come and go.
Of my little Sally, playing, only eight years old,
Too young to see, to young to know
Why her daddy would be gone to war,
Not with the armed forces, but to fight the law.
To provide a new life, for them all to share,
In a land where people really care.
For Sally plays in the dust and rubble, of the Arab sand,
Bombed daily, and in constant trouble,
as others fight for their land.
As her mother tends to her mental pain.
And her brothers and sisters cry out,
for these acts are insane.
Knowing Daddy promised a new life, away from it all.
She said she imagines me, speaking at the foreign podium,
Standing firm, proud and telling them all,
That his Sally is watching them,
to make their judicial call.
To let our family live, with hope, and peace.
And to make the constant mental anguish cease.
(In response to World Refugee Day prompt #3)
Australian Children’s Poetry 