THE FALKLAND CONFLICT 1982 REMEMBERED

In remebrance of all who gave their lives for their country.

Two poems which I wrote way back.

WE SHALL NOT FORGET OUR TOM – THE FALKLAND CONFLICT 1982

But we waited, our eyes

Like the lights of the weaving shed,

Silently watching the angry rise,

Black silhouettes, our heads

Among boulders bobbed blind

Through the wet, muddy bed,

And bursting, our minds

Saw the red of the Matador’s bull,

And the snorting began, and the pound

Of the charge, and the beat

Of our feet as we zapped and yelled,

And fired, and shelled, and hit -

Aaagghh! Was it Hell

We offered those beef-boys that night -

Our blood-curdling cry, was it Hell,

Like the Jehad, we fought

Till the mount was our own,

And the colours were bought

With the blood of our homespun

Pride. The bazooka man (who died,

My friend, my aide, was one

Whose northern fabric frayed:

Blown to bits by an Argy. Bomb)

Now lies in communal grave.

We shall not forget our Tom,

Mount Kent, Mount William, or Tumbledown,

Or the long slog there from

Plymouth sound, where our band

Played us out with imperial rock,

And Aunt Flo waved a flag, and a hand.

Copyright Jane Sharp

REMEMBRANCE SUNDAY
Chapped legs knocking,
Face icy red,
Remembering, remembering,
Remembering the dead,
Remembering what?
On that cold November day,
In the midst of dark statues
Shrouded in grey.
Like great looming tombs,
In Victorian guise,
Stiff to attention,
Tears in their eyes,
Two big bosomed ladies,
Coloured with honours,
Arms full of flowers,
And heads in fox-collars,
Stepped forward with grace
(how could they faulter)
Like virginal nuns
Approaching the altar.

All noise ceased: thought filled the skies;
A little girl prayed with tight-shut eyes.
The bugler played that familiar tune,
And the flag of the Legion was
Slowly brought down.
A motor car passed,
Again, and again,
Abide with me,
Amen,
Amen.

Copyright Jane Sharp

It has been a wonderfully warm, cosy afternoon by the fire, here in Crete.
Love Jane x

REMEMBRANCE SUNDAY

The Christmas Truce

A poem for Armistice Day

Carol Ann Duffy · 11/11/2011 · guardian.co.uk

Read by 150 people including:Remove from timeline

• Jane Sharp

Illustration by David Roberts Christmas Eve in the trenches of France,
the guns were quiet.
The dead lay still in No Man's Land –
Freddie, Franz, Friedrich, Frank . . .

The moon, like a medal, hung in the clear, cold sky.
Silver frost on barbed wire, strange tinsel,
sparkled and winked.
A boy from Stroud stared at a star
to meet his mother's eyesight there.

An owl swooped on a rat on the glove of a corpse.
In a copse of trees behind the lines,
a lone bird sang.
A soldier-poet noted it down – a robin
holding his winter ground –

then silence spread and touched each man like a hand.
Somebody kissed the gold of his ring;
a few lit pipes;
most, in their greatcoats, huddled,
waiting for sleep.

The liquid mud had hardened at last in the freeze.
But it was Christmas Eve; believe; belief
thrilled the night air,
where glittering rime on unburied sons
treasured their stiff hair.

The sharp, clean, midwinter smell held memory.
On watch, a rifleman scoured the terrain –
no sign of life,
no shadows, shots from snipers,
nowt to note or report.

The frozen, foreign fields were acres of pain.
Then flickering flames from the other side
danced in his eyes,
as Christmas Trees in their dozens shone,
candlelit on the parapets,
and they started to sing, all down the German lines.
 
Men who would drown in mud, be gassed, or shot,
or vaporised
by falling shells, or live to tell,
heard for the first time then –
Stille Nacht. Heilige Nacht. Alles schläft, einsam wacht …

Cariad, the song was a sudden bridge
from man to man;
a gift to the heart from home,
or childhood, some place shared …

When it was done, the British soldiers cheered.
A Scotsman started to bawl The First Noel
and all joined in,
till the Germans stood, seeing
across the divide,
the sprawled, mute shapes of those who had died.

All night, along the Western Front, they sang,
the enemies –
carols, hymns, folk songs, anthems,
in German, English, French;
each battalion choired in its grim trench.

So Christmas dawned, wrapped in mist,
to open itself
and offer the day like a gift
for Harry, Hugo, Hermann, Henry, Heinz …
with whistles, waves, cheers, shouts, laughs.
Frohe Weinachten, Tommy! Merry Christmas, Fritz!

A young Berliner,
brandishing schnapps,
was the first from his ditch to climb.
A Shropshire lad ran at him like a rhyme.

Then it was up and over, every man,
to shake the hand
of a foe as a friend,
or slap his back like a brother would;

exchanging gifts of biscuits, tea, Maconochie's stew,
Tickler's jam … for cognac, sausages, cigars,
beer, sauerkraut;
or chase six hares, who jumped
from a cabbage-patch, or find a ball
and make of a battleground a football pitch.

I showed him a picture of my wife.
Ich zeigte ihm
ein Foto meiner Frau.
Sie sei schön, sagte er.
He thought her beautiful, he said.

They buried the dead then, hacked spades
into hard earth
again and again, till a score of men
were at rest, identified, blessed.
Der Herr ist mein Hirt … my shepherd, I shall not want.

And all that marvellous, festive day and night,
they came and went,
the officers, the rank and file,
their fallen comrades side by side

beneath the makeshift crosses of midwinter graves …
… beneath the shivering, shy stars
and the pinned moon
and the yawn of History;
the high, bright bullets
which each man later only aimed at the sky.

The Christmas Truce, by Carol Ann Duffy, illustrated by David Roberts, is published by Picador (£5.99). To order a copy for £4.79 with free UK p&p call Guardian book service on 0330 333 6846 or go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop

Love Jane x