A Broken Heart Poem by David Keig

I fought for King and country
On the battlefields in France
I’d volunteered for active service
For I saw this as a chance
To earn respect from those around me
And stare death full in the face
Being brave was nothing strange to me
And fear is no disgrace
I saw the clouds of chlorine rising
As we put those gas masks on
I saw men torn from their bodies
I’ve been deafened by the guns
There was mustard gas and shrapnel
And more barbed wire than in the bush
There was dysentery and typhus
And bodies oozing pus
That mud clung to your belly
And the rats they seemed to thrive
On bodies out in no-man’s land
Of soldiers not alive
My mates - some of them blinded
Some of them blown apart
And others they just disappeared
When the barrages did start
Some days, it would fall silent
And you could hear the German side
I’d guess they would be blokes like us
Just trying to survive
You’d put your head up in the trenches
And the odds were pretty high
That a sniper that you couldn’t see
Would send you to the sky.
Some of us were lucky
But so many badly died
It didn’t seem like murder
More like wilful suicide
It was hell there in those trenches
There was no glory in that war
No victory in battle
Just stripped naked and red raw
I didn’t go alone you know
I’d gone off there with some mates
We’d gone to show our bravery
And then were told to wait.
There was so much bloody paperwork
Before we could go to fight
They didn’t make it easy
Because we were not white
I’m back now in Australia
Sometimes at night I wake in fear
I can hear the guns and all y’know
And they still seem very near
In the army I was Billy
I had a real name
Now, once again, I’m just an Abo
And my life is much the same
The white men, they look down on us
Then give our women rum
They often take advantage
Then threaten us with guns.
Man! If I just had my life again
And all my mates were here
I don’t think I’d fight in that war
Nor lose myself in beer.
For I thought I’d be respected
By the whitefellas and such
But now I simply realise
We don’t matter very much
For the war, they’d made us citizens
So we could play our part
Now it’s over that’s been taken back
And I have a broken heart.