ARMISTICE DAY, NOVEMBER 11, 1918
Two minutes silence for our dead as guns boom out.
No scripted orison gives justice to their sacrifice.
No loud hurrahs - no mood of victory prevails,
Only the thoughts of those in quiet reflection.
(c)John Holt
Armistice Day
Wednesday 11.Nov.1998
THEY MARCHED THEM OUT
They marched them out along the streets today,
Veterans of the wars that swept so much away.
November's drizzling rain lent pathos to the mood
As bugles blew refrain, lament for nations` blood.
Arras, Ypres, Flanders, Vimy Ridge, The Somme
Echo the voices of so many youngsters gone.
Two decades followed and a second generation came
To lay their lives down on another foreign plain.
Dunkirk, Tobruk, Saipan, Tinian and Guam
Witnessed the deaths of young men in their prime.
Wars followed on; Korea and then Vietnam.
Both took the share of killing in their plan.
As long as human nature stays the same
The `art` of making battle will remain.
They marched them out along the streets today,
Veterans of the wars that swept so much away.
(c)John Holt
Remembrance Day
Sunday,9 November,1998
A BOMBERS` MOON
Between the cyprus
and the oak
you float, pale faced
wearing a silver smile.
Shedding luminescence
your appearance
is prescience
of harvest yet-to-come.
But grandma knew your other
face, when young men
had to race loaded
with deadly cargo.
Those nights she prayed
for God to embargo
the moon, bring the clouds.
Prohibit the light.
Gran knew harvest moonshine
sent airmen to their death,
from guns below,
taking their last breath.
So she did not see romance
or love in the sky.
Did not feel the
need to swoon,
beneath a bombers` moon.
(c)John Holt 10-AUG-1998
