TALL TIMBER AND SLEEPING GIANTS

I'm impressed - My poem read on air on the ABC National Radio National Program - just click on the Download button to hear it. These two blokes did a marvellous job

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/hindsight/trees-ive-loved/5083076

POT- POURRI

The smell of Pot-Pourri always transports me back in memory to another place and another time.  The smell of it in Department stores and gift shops draws me like a bee to the flower.

THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER

THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER

Maureen Clifford ©  The Scribbly Bark Poet

He stands for all the war dead in the future, present, and past,

an unknown Aussie soldier who fought and breathed his last

on green French fields of battle – but we don’t know his name

all we know is he's Australian and I bet that he died game.

He gave up home and hearth and job, he left his own country.

He left a grieving Mother and a grieving family

who never knew if it was their man’s body now  interred

below our nations fluttering flags, with honours now conferred.

He’s someone’s son, but who’s he is indeed we’ll never know.

Enough for us to realize that a Hero lies below;

who once fought on the fields of France, was buried where he lay.

At end of war, was moved again to rest some miles away.

None know with what Battalion this young Aussie bloke fought.

None even know where he was slain or what this young man thought.

But a nation remembers him every Remembrance Day -

a fighting Aussie – loyal and true – whose life war stole away.

So when you wear the poppy and you cheer at the parades,

remember this young bloke who rests alone now in his grave.

He is the ‘unknown soldier’ a young bloke who gave his all

returned now to his homeland, once exhumed from foreign soil.

And every lad who comes back home again from fields of war

is represented by this bloke and what he had fought for.

His tomb will bear the words that they took from his eulogy

‘He is all of them, he’s one of us’ – he fought to keep us free.

We buried him with bayonet and wattle for his toil

and laid his bones to rest again back in Australian soil.

We know he is Australian but we don’t know his name

but I’ll bet you any money Mate that this young bloke died game.

LEST WE FORGET THOSE WHO GAVE THEIR ALL

A great selection of Australian Poetry in this issue specifically published for Remembrance Day - and it includes a poem written by my Grandfather who served in WWI - 'The Boys in the Billet"

http://www.theaustraliatimes.com/emagazines/poetry/issue7/

RED

RED

Maureen Clifford © The Scribbly Bark Poet

There’s a blood red road ‘ neath a blood red moon, winding past the bloodwood trees

and it winds along in its own sweet time and it leads to where it leads.

There’s a plume of dust reaching to the skies as the old Ute bucks and skids

on the gravel road , corrugated deep , a mere track, for goats and kids.

Where the gum tree leaves hanging limp and grey, turn red ‘neath the rising sun

and their coat of dust adds a tinge of rust, left behind on this outback run.

Here the shadows cast by their stark grey boughs seem to almost duck and weave

as the Ute rolls under the dome of sky, that turns red as the moon takes leave.

There’s a taste that mingles with the dust, flavoured by mans despair

for the rains have ceased and there’s no release from the worry or the care.

With the paddocks dry and the stock long gone and the creek just stagnant pools

it’s a bloody shame but this farming game seems is for the rich or fools.

He had done his best, as had all the rest, every leaf they’d overturned.

He had lost the lot, and the gains he’d got, Mother Nature had now spurned.

With a mind confused, nothing else to lose, he had one last hand to play.

There’s a blood red pool, ‘neath a bloodwood tree where a life just ebbs away.