So rest young warrior In yon ditch or field And know that we are grateful For the might that you did wield. Rest easy in your graves For it's not you who sinned And we will always honour you Though you are but dust in the wind. The suited table talkers who fail Send our young to die But don't include their own children When they give war a try. It's the unemployed and poor who sign up for wars and adversity While the rich kids catch a jet To a foreign job or university. So many generous immature souls Come forward when the Bell is rung When the politician's remedies fail They pass the bile filled cup - To the young.
Tag: Young
To Be Young Again
If I was young once more and could return to earlier times not just for the return of vigour but to acknowledge the kindness of others. When I was chasing dreams and scrabbling upwards in the dirt there were those who understood and excused my folly or stooped to help. A bumptious thrusting callow chap climbing upwards on better folk found his route to wealth and fame and lived only for the moment. There were the family members astonished by this maverick in the nest who strode into unknown arenas and made them his. Workmates who held on the coat tails as he went where they feared to go were glad that it was his head above the parapet and they could move on without risk. But when he fell down hurting as he sometimes did, some of them comforted him with an arm, a meal, or a bed. An earnest, driven and intense soul wishing I had paused on the way to say thank you for the help aided by the understanding of others.
September Memories
As an onshore wind moves the trees
With the smell of seaweed on the breeze
Memories return just as they please.
Ah September!
Past holidays return with a leap
Spent here in Autumn when quite cheap
So exciting he couldn't sleep
In September.
A young boy not yet seven
Knee deep in mud soft and even
Thinks he's just arrived in Heaven
Great September.
This is the best place he ever saw
There's freedom here - no playground law
And he doesn't even know he's poor -
It's just September.
Years later and this man reflects
On life and love, wealth and sex
And why life now is so complex
Not September.
When he can walk this beach no more
And journeys to a higher shore
He will meet those pleasures gone before
Again September.
The river Blackwater in Essex is in my soul. I was taken to Mersea Island every Autumn when a child and still sail in the area now in my middle seventies. One bright Blackwater morning while walking on the foreshore this poem came to me.
As I See Things 