Share your poems
If you would like to share a poem, we’d like to hear from you. You can upload your poem by adding it into the comments box below...
If you would like to share a poem, we’d like to hear from you. You can upload your poem by adding it into the comments box below...
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Comment by: Biggles
22 October 2010 - 19:21
The Spirit of Christmas
It was cold in the trenches that Christmas;
We were up to our ankles in mud,
And the shells that were bursting around us
Brought a chill to the bravest man's blood.
Then the barrage of sound slowly faded
And dwindled away to a stop.
Down the line, someone shouted "Get ready.
Tomorrow we're over the top."
As we waited expecting the order,
A mate took a tin whistle out.
Soon the silence was broken by music
As the Spirit of Christmas poured out.
One by one, the chaps joined in the singing,
And the war was a thing of the past.
We forgot that our reason for coming
Was to kill and to maim and to blast.
In the distance a voice sang a carol;
We knew what it was by the range.
Some Jerry had set the words winging,
They sounded all foreign and strange.
'Stille Nacht’ died away into silence.
Astonished, we waited for more.
"Merry Christmas," a German voice shouted.
With those words came an end to the war.
We cautiously went up to greet them,
These men we'd been fighting for weeks.
And we learned that a man is a person,
No matter what language he speaks.
Well, we smoked and we laughed and showed photos
Of wives and of daughters and sons.
And we drank to each other that Christmas;
We drank to the silence of guns.
Then one of the chaps found a football;
We kicked it around for a while.
Friend and foe played together like brothers,
Every face you could see wore a smile.
But we said our goodbyes with a handshake;
Returned to our trenches again.
I can still hear those words, "So long, Tommy!",
With a feeling that's hard to explain.
With a whistle, the fighting restarted;
We asked ourselves, “What was it for?”.
There was friend killing friend in those trenches
Where a whistle had once stopped a war.
For a moment in time we'd been comrades
Whose friendship had crossed No Man's Land,
And we'd witnessed how enemy forces
Can be joined by the touch of God's hand.
Bryan Darby
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Comment by: roonek
29 October 2010 - 11:36
and Tracey dancing
Over Margate Sands
the Sun burns on
glowing, neon bright
this star is God
Rays divide
time from restless tide
to recuperate, regenerate
frailty, loss, ambition
Over Margate Sands
the Sun burns on
eternal, irradiant
this God is art:
Turner turning
toward the light
T.S. sitting, again to write
and Tracey dancing.
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Comment by: RussellScottSkinner
28 September 2011 - 11:36
“Shapes mold and move like a giant on the landscape looking for somewhere to sit.
Until she finds it no place will feel like home,
As the dove sets sail on its journey.
With seas to cross and storms to find.
But as the wings grow heavy fate delivers an angel to carry her
to where once she dreamed of being tucked into a giants pocket for safety.”
There is an image to go with this text. Located at http://www.russellscottskinner.com/page73.html
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