Lasting Peace Poem by ivor or ivor.e hogg

They laid creeping barrage down
in preparation for the push.
It was a pearler Mrs Brown
and turned the battleground to mush.

The effing noise was deafening
and then the silence even worse.
I saw the sergeant beckoning
my fervent prayer became a curse.

The first lieutenant leas us though
over the top into the mud
We had no choice we had to go
. Though why I’ve never understood.

We couldn’t charge we had to trudge
There seemed to be no solid ground
the effing world was full of sludge
and if you fell you would be drowned.

We over ran a German trench
much like the one we left behind.
It had the same familiar stench
and like our own badly designed.

How I survived I do not know
But I got home still in one piece
I still feel guilty sometimes though
And seldom sleep the night in peace.

Remember then the fighting men,
The men like simple Sammy Brown.
Who lived to see his home again
unlike his mates who were mown down.

Though Sammy lived to ninety three
he never could forget the past.
He lies In Highgate cemetery
his epitaph reads Peace at last.

10-Nov-07