War Poems from English class in the 1990s

West Terrace Cemetery, Adelaide WW1 section

 

 

Recently I came across a series of small school assignments on my computer that I had made a copy of from when I was in school during the 1990s. I officially finished my HSC in 1999. I remember collecting a series of war poems for English and one or two I wrote out from the Australian War Memorial in Canberra when I went on a family trip around the same time.

I do still remember the English teacher marking the assignment and using red ink to correct some of the language even though I tried explaining it was written as spelt in the books and at the AWM. The teacher being an older gentleman probably didnt care, who knows. Wouldnt you want the exact spelling for historical context?

 

I do remember looking through some books at the same time as I only needed three. I am pretty sure two out of three are from the AWM. There was a book involved. I think the running commentary at the bottom of the poems might be my interpretation, It has been so long that I cant quite remember myself.

 

War is like a disease

spreading into minds of young people

turning country against country

 

 

 

Anti Gas Corporal’s Lullaby

 

If you get a choking feeling and a smell of musty hay

you can bet your bottom dollar that there’s phosgene on the way,

But the smell of bleaching powder will inevitably mean,

that the enemy we’re meeting is a gas we call chlorine

 

When your eyes begin twitching and for tears you cannot see

It’s not mother peeling onions but a dose of C.A.P.

should the smell resemble peardrops, you better not delay

It’s not brother sucking toffee, its that awful K.S.K.

 

If you catch a pungent odour as you’re going home to tea,

You may safely take for granted that they’re using B.B.C.

If for garlic or for onions you’ve cultivated taste

When in war you meet these odours, leave that area in haste.

 

It’s mustard gas, the hellish stuff, that leaves you in one big blister

and in hospital you’ll need, the kind of attention of the sister.

While geraniums linger pleasant, in a jar beside the bed.

You must shun the hell in war time. If its lewisite you’re DEAD.

 

  This poem reminds us how Australian soldiers in adversity drew on their sense of humour.

 

 

Sword Stories

 

 To win a sword that was taken from a Nippon’s son

 You had to be in the unit before August forty one.

 They look like bits of hoop iron and very badly dent.

 With scabbards made of timber stuck to together with cement.

 

 They have to be handled gently, maybe they’d fall apart.

 And if that should come to happen t’would break the owner’s heart

Emery paper to the fore Brasso applied to skill.

For every one of those Nip Swords has sure been through the mill.

 

Carefully wrapped in calico and placed beneath the bunk

They’ll sue be Ammunition for some ear bashing punk

Those swords will win some beer in pubs down south awhile.

The owner will spin the yarns and not even crack a smile.

 

They will hang it in the dining room above the fireplace there

And the relations all will come and look and point and stare

The tales about the sword the neighbours ears will baffle

But they’ll never tell the listeners they won it in a raffle.

 

It will probably be exhibited in every country pub.

And maybe down at yand J’s and up the city club.

It will pass from hand to hand among the patrons there.

But by the time that some get home the sight will not be rare.

 

When Reunion Day comes round as it will every year

And clashing swords and rifle shots is all that you can hear

One of the mob will wonder up and look very bored

Will try to tell us tales about a captured Nippon Sword.

 

“Sword Stories”

 

   The Australian Soldier’s enthusiasm for souvenir collecting

as well as for the telling of tall stories are sent up in this anonymous poem, believed to be written by an Australian Soldier who served in the south west pacific.

 

 

 To one at Home

 

Do not be saddened for my sake

for I shall keep my trust with you

Some morning when the dawn shall break

upon a world where is hope is new.

Yes I shall keep the rendezous,

Beloved one, which we have made

and all the past shall fade into

A dim and dream like cavalcade

of half remembered griefs and fears

which we shall doubt were ever true

and love shall fill the golden years

with sweetness - when our pain in through.

VX36684

 

Private G.H. Morrison.