Shot at Dawn
This poem does not condone desertion
nor is it a proponent of summary execution
or the use of capital punishment as a deterrent.
The citizen army of August 1914
saw in its time 8Million signed up
resulting in 750,000 dead
of this 300/3000 executed.
This is the tale of just one life.
Shot at Dawn
`
At nineteen you were still a child
hopping off to an aggrandised war
filled with romantic and exuberant air
At nineteen you travelled over the channel
to Mons, by the Belgian border marching
there receiving the horrors of humiliated retreat
At nineteen you went missing
first in Dublin taking leave without permission
now in France and sought for desertion
At nineteen you were a fugitive
hiding from town to town
filled with fear and personal loathing
without destination, without future
At nineteen you were confronted
by a baron's gamekeeper
whisked from barn to court marshall
At nineteen you met the iron will
of a military court in face of disaster
you were the first deserter to be convicted
As far as publicly convenient, within two days
without showing the world we shoot our own
At nineteen you marched out, first light of dawn
And in the half light of a new day
in an unmarked grave by the road
At nineteen ceremoniously executed and hastily buried
A queue of poplar trees with arms outstretched
lifted plaintive prayers to the war torn sky
At nineteen hope flew as far as the eye can see
Shortly before dawn, escorted by armed guards
tied to a post, blindfolded, white cloth to the heart
At nineteen your regiment paraded through gun smoke
An exemplary deterrent to all West Kents
rifles cracked from shaking arms
At nineteen you were shot at dawn
`
Pvt. Thomas James Highgate (19)
Royal West Kents
d.08-09-1914
poem by Frederick Kesner
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
1984
Nineteen eighty four
Someday they wont let you
Now you must agree
The time they are a telling
And the changing isnt free
You read it in the tea leaves
And the reacks are on tv
Beware the savage jaw
In nineteen eighty four
Theyll split your pretty cranium
And fill it full of air
Theyll tell you that youre eighty
And really you wont care
Youll be shooting up on everything
Tomorrows never there
Beware the savage jaw
In nineteen eighty four
Come see come see
Remember me
I played in an all night movie role
You said it would last
But I guess weve enrolled
In nineteen eighty four
Who could ask for more
Nineteen eighty four
Who could ask for more
Im looking for a vehicle
Im looking for a ride
Im looking for a party
Im looking for a side
Im looking for a treason
That I knew in sixty five
Beware the savage door
In nineteen eighty four
Come see come see
Remember me
I played in an all night movie role
You said it would last
But I guess weve enrolled
In nineteen eighty four
Who could ask for more
Nineteen eighty four
Who could ask for more
Nineteen eighty four
song performed by by Tina Turner
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Nineteen Years Is Long Enough (Revised)
For the first time in nineteen years I'm planning
Christmas with my parents, to be with them as
one singing Carols, preparing delicacies to eat -
but particularly singing songs mother wrote,
presenting the play she designed for us ages
ago when we twins were just six years old
Back then my brothers and dad spoiled things -
but this time we can present mother's songs less
their interference, and afterwards I can go for a
spin on brother-in-law's motorbike, making up
for events we missed when small - yes, this
Christmas will be a grand reunion ball
For the first time in nineteen years I shan't be
home; it's either or, never parents and hubby
together, and though he was angry hearing
my plans - after nineteen years he cannot
really complain - it is the first time I shall be
with them - I think it is fair,
Nineteen years is long enough
poem by Margaret Alice Second
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Hey Nineteen
Way back when
In sixty-seven
I was the dandy
Of gamma chi
Sweet things from boston
So young and willing
Moved down to scarsdale
Where the hell am i
Hey nineteen
No we cant dance together
No we cant talk at all
Please take me along
When you slide on down
Hey nineteen
Thats retha franklin
She dont remember
The queen of soul
Its hard times befallen
The sole survivors
She thinks Im crazy
But Im just growing old
Hey nineteen
No we got nothing in common
No we cant talk at all
Please take me along
When you slide on down
The cuervo gold
The fine columbian
Make tonight a wonderful thing
No we cant dance together
No we cant talk at all
song performed by by Steely Dan
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
1924: A Love Story
The day you walked in
Stood on my door
You were nineteen
I was twenty four.
A look at your face
Weakened my knees
In your sweet fairness
I experienced bliss.
Throbbed hard my heart
My body felt so light
That spelt the start
Of my love at first sight!
The day you walked in
There wasn't anymore
Happiness for nineteen
Peace for twenty four.
poem by Pradip Chattopadhyay
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Will Makes The Way
He left a will to share his nineteen horses:
A half to his son; a quarter to daughter;
One fifth to his maid. Indivisible;
A wise man was sought, who came on his horse.
He placed his horses with nineteen horses.
Making it to twenty, he did as the will bid.
Ten to son, five to daughter and four to maid.
He took his. If will is there, way will form.
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Remember before nineteen seventy two Olympic Games I was total skinny, I was small, very strong, they may be don't like to see a gymnastics like that. I don't know but, gymnastics, might. Nineteen seventy two supposed to be change somewhere.
quote by Olga Korbut
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Sexcrime
Can i take this for granted
With your eyes over me?
In this place
This wintery home
I know there's always someone in
Sexcrime
Sexcrime
Nineteen eighty four
And so i face the wall
Turn my back against it all
How i wish i'd been unborn
Wish i was unliving here
Sexcrime
Sexcrime
Nineteen eighty four
I'll pull the bricks down
One by one
Leave a big hole in the wall
Just where you are looking in
song performed by by Eurythmics
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
The One before the Last
I dreamt I was in love again
With the One Before the Last,
And smiled to greet the pleasant pain
Of that innocent young past.
But I jumped to feel how sharp had been
The pain when it did live,
How the faded dreams of Nineteen-ten
Were Hell in Nineteen-five.
The boy's woe was as keen and clear,
The boy's love just as true,
And the One Before the Last, my dear,
Hurt quite as much as you.
* * * * *
Sickly I pondered how the lover
Wrongs the unanswering tomb,
And sentimentalizes over
What earned a better doom.
Gently he tombs the poor dim last time,
Strews pinkish dust above,
And sighs, "The dear dead boyish pastime!
But this - ah, God! - is Love!"
- Better oblivion hide dead true loves,
Better the night enfold,
Than men, to eke the praise of new loves,
Should lie about the old!
* * * * *
Oh! bitter thoughts I had in plenty.
But here's the worst of it -
I shall forget, in Nineteen-twenty,
You ever hurt a bit!
poem by Rupert Brooke (1910)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
Vote! | Copy!
One Before the Last, The
I dreamt I was in love again
With the One Before the Last,
And smiled to greet the pleasant pain
Of that innocent young past.
But I jumped to feel how sharp had been
The pain when it did live,
How the faded dreams of Nineteen-ten
Were Hell in Nineteen-five.
The boy's woe was as keen and clear,
The boy's love just as true,
And the One Before the Last, my dear,
Hurt quite as much as you.
* * * * *
Sickly I pondered how the lover
Wrongs the unanswering tomb,
And sentimentalizes over
What earned a better doom.
Gently he tombs the poor dim last time,
Strews pinkish dust above,
And sighs, "The dear dead boyish pastime!
But THIS -- ah, God! -- is Love!"
-- Better oblivion hide dead true loves,
Better the night enfold,
Than men, to eke the praise of new loves,
Should lie about the old!
* * * * *
Oh! bitter thoughts I had in plenty.
But here's the worst of it --
I shall forget, in Nineteen-twenty,
YOU ever hurt abit!
poem by Rupert Brooke
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Ballad Of Bodacious
Bodacious am a whole lotta' bull
over nineteen hundred pounds.
He's born in Galry, Oklahoma
and he's the baddest sonsabitch around
if a Burma bull ever were a super star
then Bodacious just might be.
He's a cream colored, beefy brawn,
full-fledged, four footed bovine celebrity.
Who's gonna ride Bodacious?
Who's gonna tame him down?
Look out for Bodacious, he's bound to hold his ground.
Here comes Bodacious, ya'll just step aside.
Big and bad Bodacious takes a toll from those who ride.
Young Bo met a man named Tuff Hedeman
at the start of his buckin' spree
and Tuff became one of the few to make the whistle
back in Nineteen Ninety Three.
Tuff tried to ride Bo again at the finals
in Nineteen Ninety Five.
Bodacious had got a little older and wiser
Tuff barely came out alive.
song performed by by Primus
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Proud
I lost my virginity in old Mexico
My lover was was nothing more than a lovely soul to me
She was a beauty to me
Love was not free
I think of that time
In nineteen sixty nine.
Then in Japan I walked through the streets
And found love again
It is no sin
It was nineteen seventy
And so heavenly.
Then in seventy four
I wanted more and married
A beautiful puerto rican lover of life
I made her my wife.
My family never came to the wedding
They shunned my bride
But love was alive
And she suffered living
In the town that I called home.
Now I have my son and two grandchildren
Irish and puerto rican proud.
Hey you!
Get off of my cloud!
Shore Leave Ornithology
Slacks, coffee trend
I could have been in the us navy
Flapping grey, coffee smoke
I could have been in another nineteen-fifty
Where the hell were you?
Rough stencil, print music
Cardboard, cardboard, cardboard, cardboard, cardboard coffee
Saxophone mention barbers, n.y.
The cigarette was burning, the flat shoes
Stool
Bongo, coffee, don't mention that black man
The leather-coat was his
Where was she?
Could have been in the us navy
Flow beating air, table-top, shoulder slung
Shore leave, no sailors here
Cardboard, cardboard, cardboard, cardboard
Liquor slacks twisting
The cigarette was burning
The flat shoes, the flat shoes, the flat shoes
Bird, bird, bird, bird
I could have been in another nineteen-fifty
Bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird
Bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird
I could have been in another nineteen-fifty
Bird, bird, bird
song performed by by Xtc
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Nineteen-Fifty-Two
I wish things were,
the same now, as then,
i wish I was there, instead of here.
In nineteen-fifty-two,
things were simple, and so care-free,
you alway, had something to do
You could see a movie,
or buy, a comic or pop for the price of a dime
everone's favorite saying, was groovie.
Drugs were no problem, at all,
crime also, was very down
young Willie May, was even playing ball.
Children had respect, even for their parents
three-D was really in,
and everyone had good merit's
In nine-teen-fifty-two,
Ike was elected president
and I wasn't feeling blue
I know the past
is gone, you can't go back
time really goes on fast
I wished then, I could've made a forecast
nineteen-fifty-two, only now a memory,
looking back, life has been good, at last.
The Skyline Riders
Against the light of a dawning white
My Skyline Riders stand—
There is trouble ahead for a dark year dead
And the selfish wrongs of a land;
There are hurrying feet of fools to repeat
The follies of Nineteen Eight,
But darkly still on each distant hill
My riders watch and wait.
My Skyline Riders are down and gone
As far as the eye can see,
And the horses stand in the shades of dawn
Where a single man holds three.
We feel the flush and we feel the thrill
Of the coming of Nineteen Nine,
For my Skyline Riders are over the hill
And into the firing line.
The skyline lifts while a storm-cloud lowers—
What’s that? A shot! All’s well!
There is news out there for this land of ours
That the tattling rifles tell.
A “thud” and a “thud” and a flash like blood!
There is light on the land at last!
Australian guns on the nearer hills
Are talking about the past.
O, a lonely place in the days gone by
Was the long first firing line,
Where we fought as strangers, you and I,
For the land that was yours and mine.
There was time to dream in the firing line,
There was time to starve and die,
When the only things in that world of mine
Were my Native Land and I.
O, a lonely place was the firing line
When the gaps were wide between—
Hundreds of miles, in this land of mine
And never a soldier seen.
The dying must die and the dead were left
Unmarked by the deadly tired—
When struck to the heart in a firing line
Where never a shot was fired.
O, a lonely place was the firing line
In the days of the dearth of men,
But hundreds and hundreds of soldiers’ sons
Have flocked to the line since then
We left it weak in the hour of pride,
When our rule seemed firmly set,
But danger threatened the firing line,
And there’s deadly danger yet.
Proud of virtue, and proud of sin,
Or proud ’neath a cruel wrong;
Proud in failure or proud to win—
Oh, the pride of man is strong!
Proud of gold or of being without
Or proud of women and wine—
But get you down from your horse of pride
And into the firing line.
Pride in poverty—all the same—
There’s work for all men to do,
With wrong to fight there is deathless fame
To win in a land so new.
Preacher and drunkard! and sportsman and bard!
In the dawning of Nineteen Nine—
Saints and sinners! ride hard! ride hard!
They are pressed in the Firing Line.
poem by Henry Lawson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Calvary
Friendless and faint, with martyred steps and slow,
Faint for the flesh, but for the spirit free,
Stung by the mob that came to see the show,
The Master toiled along to Calvary;
We gibed him, as he went, with houndish glee,
Till his dimmed eyes for us did overflow;
We cursed his vengeless hands thrice wretchedly, --
And this was nineteen hundred years ago.
But after nineteen hundred years the shame
Still clings, and we have not made good the loss
That outraged faith has entered in his name.
Ah, when shall come love's courage to be strong!
Tell me, O Lord -- tell me, O Lord, how long
Are we to keep Christ writhing on the cross!
poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Expecting You
I am a woman and i know the father of my child,
But holding up the silver side of love to tell you my story;
For i am nineteen years old and, i am like a woman of words already!
One mile from 'Mile-Seven',
One word from 'Mile-Eleven',
And like a small world from 'Mile-Twelve'! !
But invisible with my passion to him who impregnated me;
For i am nineteen years old and, i am like a woman of words.
I am now in a world of my own and,
It is just like another day without the rain;
But are you ready to follow me into the woods with my child? !
For i have been expecting you lately on this issue of mine,
Because i am a woman and i know the father of my child;
But holding up the silver sde of love to tell you my story!
poem by Edward Kofi Louis
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Nineteen nay-says of a maiden are half a grant.
One of them is nineteen, the other is one less than twenty.
The Magic of Numbers
The Magic of Numbers—1
How strange it was to hear the furniture being moved around in the apartment upstairs!
I was twenty-six, and you were twenty-two.
The Magic of Numbers—2
You asked me if I wanted to run, but I said no and walked on.
I was nineteen, and you were seven.
The Magic of Numbers—3
Yes, but does X really like us?
We were both twenty-seven.
The Magic of Numbers—4
You look like Jerry Lewis (1950).
The Magic of Numbers—5
Grandfather and grandmother want you to go over to their house for dinner.
They were sixty-nine, and I was two and a half.
The Magic of Numbers—6
One day when I was twenty-nine years old I met you and nothing happened.
The Magic of Numbers—7
No, of course it wasn’t I who came to the library!
Brown eyes, flushed cheeks, brown hair. I was twenty-nine, and you were sixteen.
The Magic of Numbers—8
After we made love one night in Rockport I went outside and kissed the road
I felt so carried away. I was twenty-three, and you were nineteen.
The Magic of Numbers—9
I was twenty-nine, and so were you. We had a very passionate time.
Everything I read turned into a story about you and me, and everything I did was turned into a poem.
“The Magic of Numbers” from The Collected Poems of Kenneth Koch, published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Copyright © 2006 by Kenneth Koch.
poem by Kenneth Koch
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
At the age of nineteen and a half, I went to the Land of Israel to till its soil and live by the labour of my hands. As I did not find work, I sought my livelihood elsewhere.
quote by Shmuel Y. Agnon
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!