Angry Rural Folks Went To Town - Kathy Figueroa

A truck burns during a "Yellow vest" protest in Paris ©Reuters/Benoit Tessier 

I’m glad I wasn’t in Paris today,
Sipping coffee on the Champs-Élysées,
When a huge riot and conflagration
Erupted in front of a shocked nation.

A fuel tax hike caused intense widespread ire,
Which resulted in unleashed rage and fire,
When 5,000 came to show discontent,
Demonstrate en masse, and violently vent.

They questioned President Macron's choices,
By collectively raising their voices.
November 24th, a Saturday,
The public’s anger was on full display.

Higher tax was simply too much to bear,
And it was clearly felt to be unfair.
The standard of living was going down,
Hence the angry rural folks went to town….

Kathy Figueroa

The Granite Ship - Richard Fleming

Waves crash around the granite ship,
unceasingly, unceasingly,
and though the sturdy structure holds
the vessel is increasingly
at peril from the hungry whip
of breakers while the ocean scolds
as we, poor mariners, steadfast,
stand resolute beneath the mast.

Our shipmates, hardy island men,
crew of the granite ship, respect
the awesome hunger of the sea,
its rage, were it to go unchecked,
might rise and inundate again
the living land, our sanctuary.
Our ship sails on, we pray that day
may never come, wish it away.

One day, not in our lifetime, no,
the sea will overcome and spill
across this deck of leafy lanes,
into the hold where secrets still
lie undisturbed: a grim cargo
of wartime crimes, unwholesome gains,
to drown the shining steeples, tall,
and finance houses, one and all.

Beleaguered Guernsey, ship of stone,
sea-salt encrusts abandoned cars,
coats ancient wells, old walls, those trees
that still remain like jutting spars;
encrusts greenhouses, overgrown,
their old vines riddled with disease,
while, constantly, relentless waves
thrust deeper into coast and caves.

We watch the fierce tide fall and rise.
Secure on deck, our granite ship
implants its staunchness in our hearts,
imbeds in us a coarse-grained chip.
We mariners would be unwise,
however, to rely on charts:
that unrelenting enemy
will sink us yet, the sea, the sea.

Richard Fleming

Illusion Of Happiness - Tony Bradley

At 19, I actually thought that now, I’m happy,
especially after my torturous childhood,
because, suddenly, it seemed there was a purpose
fortuitously, suddenly, a convenient role.
I was her brave knight, in shining armour
for 30 years thus, thinking only of her,
But she suddenly died, and I realised that I’d been hiding
just too afraid to find my soul.

Suddenly bereaved, alone,I had to toughen up
my life was just empty, undone
I’d cowered behind an image, all those years
and denied myself a life of fun.

Tony Bradley

Last Goodbye - Tony Gardner

The old man died in Saskatoon
His home for many a year
He sleeps beneath the prairie moon
Canadian friends are near

His spirit flew the day he died
Back to his childhood home
Back to the Guernsey countryside
Where once he loved to roam

It danced along the Jerbourg Road
Sang as it gambolled on
Re-living memories of old
Recalled from days long gone

It flew across the rugged coast
Above the sun-gold gorse
And spied the little fishing boats
Safe in the tiny port

From Saints it passed until it flowed
To where La Gran' Mere guards
The age-old church where long ago
His life was giv'n to God

His spirit satisfied at last
By memories richly strewn
Returned across the ocean blast
To rest in Saskatoon

Tony Gardner

The Valour, The Horror - Kathy Figueroa

Ypres, the Somme, Vimy Ridge, Passchendaele…
The Enemy was fearsome, but destined to fail
Before the might of the Canadian Expeditionary Force
Brave-hearted men who changed history’s course

Let us not forget the young lives lost
The tremendous toll, the human cost
The valour, the horror, the pain, the gore
The battles waged on a foreign shore

Let us remember torn flesh, blood, and bone
That mingled with mud, water, sand, and stone
…Europe’s ridges, trenches, beaches, and plains
Are scattered with fragments of human remains

Of good men who knew not if they’d perish
To uphold ideals that we cherish
Who risked their lives for future generations
With a hope of peace among the nations

November 11, 1918, was Armistice Day
The warfare stopped and peace held sway
One hundred years later, let us remember still
And strive for peace, harmony, and goodwill

Lest we forget.

Kathy Figueroa

This poem is dedicated to the memory of a veteran of World War I and
member of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, Peter Harman, my grandfather.

Veteran - Stephen A. Roberts

In the smoke and flattened fields
your comrades walked into oblivion;
you were left to face
a hundred years alone

Now you are fêted
and they ask you,
before you fade into history,
what was it like?

A tear comes,
it is for the fallen:
and for the
world still at war

Stephen A. Roberts

Muddy Fields - Diane Scantlebury

Your great grandad fought in the 1st world war
He survived, but never spoke,
About the muddy fields and stinking trenches
Or of the mustard gas on which he’d choked,
He’d joined up early to fight the Hun
For king and country to make a brave stand,
Too young, he’d lied about his age,
Too young to be dodging bullets in no man’s land,
Your great grandad fought in the 1st world war
He survived, but never spoke,
About the muddy fields that were the Somme,
Where young boys fell and slept,
But never woke.

Diane Scantlebury

Wear Your Poppy With Pride - Lyndon Queripel

Wear your poppy with pride
That's what the sign said
Remember the ones who died
And the ones who bled
Wear your poppy with pride
It's time to pay the price
For those who turned the tide
With their ultimate sacrifice

Wear you poppy with pride
For we must never forget
It can't ever be denied
We owe them such a debt
Wear your poppy with pride
Give generously if you please
Now that the blood has dried
And we all live in peace

Wear your poppy with pride
There's freedom in the air
And take your place beside
The silence of our prayer
Wear your poppy with pride
Let the services begin
Remember the widowed bride
And the unsung heroine

Wear your poppy with pride
For those who rose and fell
Across the great divide
Of bullets, gas and shell
Wear your poppy with pride
If only those poor souls knew
The same banks financed every side
In both World war one and two

Wear your poppy with pride
With faith,hope and charity
In God they trust and hide
From behind this conspiracy
Wear your poppy with pride
To honour the brave hero
But who gets to decide
Where all the money will go

Wear your poppy with pride
As a tribute to the many
There's veterans far and wide
Who won't even see a penny
Wear your poppy with pride
For the old soldier on the street
He sold his medals and cried
Just to buy something to eat.

Lyndon Queripel

Boots 1916 - Trudie Shannon

My boots are invisible.
I cannot see where my torso ends and my thighs begin.
I cannot see my trouser legs, or my legs within
I am become a shapeless form encased in cloying mud.
I cannot feel the cloth that clothes my skin.
I cannot feel the skin beneath the cloth
I cannot feel a bloody thing.
My boots are invisible.
And the gun in my hands is slick with blood,
My blood and bloody rain.
And I cannot see where my torso ends and my thighs begin
I cannot see ought but this sea of mud
And its tide of body parts.
And it’s so quiet, so deathly quiet.
My boots are become invisible roots
And the bloom of my youth a poppy.

Trudie Shannon