Week Twenty Two - Page Four
POET'S CORNER
Inspired by the moving and often chillingly realistic work of the World War One poets, our Year Six children turned their hands to the genre and produced some stunning stanzas. Here is just a tiny selection which will transport you back to the horror and trauma of life in the trenches. Lest We Forget.
ABI
Eyes wild, scared
Teeth broken from cold
Men trudging
Men dying
Men who went but never returned.
Noises pierce the air
Stopping sleep
Giving in to nightmares
Allowing cold darkness to seep in
To take over.
A young voice filles a space.
A space abandoned.
A space that can never be replaced.
A space that will never again be filled.
A voice mourning for a man who went
A man who never came back.
LOIS
Marching through sludge with scars all over,
The limitless test began.
The deafening sound of soldiers screams echoed,
In the blood filled puddles they sat.
Night fell but it was just the beginning,
The fighters rose from the ground.
Rotten boots stepped as the sinking mud pulled them in.
The unblinking eyes of soldiers starred in every direction.
As smoke filled the unforgiving battlefield,
Coughing and spluttering soldiers grabbed their gas masks in desperate fear.
Many took their last breath
Would it be their last?
ARLO
As the world goes on,
We fall on our knees
One lives,
One dies,
Oh my,
the damned misery in his blackened eyes.
The dead trees are a sign of the horror,
Nothing escapes unbroken,
For life means nothing,
Nothing at all,
But remember,
We do this for the country which serves us all.
To die for your country,
It’s a glorified death,
Consumed by darkness,
Consumed by death
YASMEENA
The cold, bitter bite of metal
The night air singing with gunfire
How is it up to you;
To get to choose who lives or dies?
The sweet, haunting melodies,
Of life before the war.
The flashing, fragmented memories
Of glassy, agonised eyes;
And whispered goodbyes.
The clipping cracks
That split the night
The silence that shattered like glass
The pinpoint precision
Hundreds of lives
That blink out of existence
In the space of a heart beat.
The cruel laugh of fate
A dagger snagging on skin
A blade screaming through the air
The flash of a razor’s gleaming edge
No amount of reckless bravery
No amount of talent alone
Nothing but luck and mindset
Stops the bullet from piercing your skin
And yet.
A world of velvety blackness
LUCA
Defectum Sequetur quandoque te usque in sempiternum
The tense breathing,
Piercing the silence,
Not a bird making a sound.
Death waiting to strike.
Frozen in time,
The stalemate continues.
Hesitation shown in each pair of eyes.
The order comes.
It couldn't have come sooner.
We peek out of our hideout.
Nothing stirs.
We slowly advance out.
All of sudden the whole scene is covered in red.
Explosions shaking the ground.
Like a giants footstep.
I am knocked off my feet.
A thousand stabs of pain burn into me.
Flashes are all I can see.
The screams of the fallen drowned out by the thunder of gunfire.
That should i survive will haunt me forever.
All i can think now,
As i lie dying on the ground,
Blood pooling around me,
Is how i failed my family,
How i will never set eyes on the sun again.
To be banished away,
Is a pain worse than death.
Those are my thoughts,
As blackness slowly consumes me.