The Last Post
The bugler sent a call of high romance—
“Lights out! Lights out!” to the deserted square.
On the thin brazen notes he threw a prayer,
“God, if it’s this for me next time in France…
O spare the phantom bugle as I lie
Dead in the gas and smoke and roar of guns,
Dead in a row with the other broken ones
Lying so stiff and still under the sky,
Jolly young Fusiliers too good to die.”
poem by Robert Graves
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Related quotes
In Barracks
The barrack-square, washed clean with rain,
Shines wet and wintry-grey and cold.
Young Fusiliers, strong-legged and bold,
March and wheel and march again.
The sun looks over the barrack gate,
Warm and white with glaring shine,
To watch the soldiers of the Line
That life has hired to fight with fate.
Fall out: the long parades are done.
Up comes the dark; down goes the sun.
The square is walled with windowed light.
Sleep well, you lusty Fusiliers;
Shut your brave eyes on sense and sight,
And banish from your dreamless ears
The bugle’s dying notes that say,
‘Another night; another day.’
poem by Siegfried Sassoon
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Dead And Broken
Too many things I've never spoken
I'm not feeling fine
I never told you what to do
I never made you a promise that you could hold me to
That'll be the day you see me crying
Everyday, I still say you're dead and broken
Everyday, I still say you're dead and broken
You're dead and broken
How many different faces can you show me?
How many times can you be right?
Another world of fantasy
Another reason for dramatizing everything
Taking it all in just one more time
I'm dying
Everyday, I still say you're dead and broken
Everyday, I still say you're dead and broken
You're dead and broken
Sorry to see that you're underestimated lately
I'd rather be dead and broken than living in your grace
Everyday, I still say you're dead and broken
Everyday, I still say you're dead and broken
You're dead and broken
You're dead and broken
You're dead and broken
You're dead and broken
You're dead and broken
You're dead and broken
You're dead and broken
song performed by by Godsmack
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Red Lights
Red lights - on the highway
Headlights - blinding my eye
Red lights - keep me waiting
White lights - drive me insane
Red lights - in the city
Streetlights - high in the night
Searchlights - Im looking for someone
Red lights - young bloods alright
Try as I can but (? )
I cant keep away
No no no no way
Red lights - she knows what Im here for
Headlights - look me in the eye
Red lights - are you looking for danger
White lights - drives me insane
Try as I can but (? )
I cant keep away
No no no, not for one day
Red lights - no questions
Streetlights c youths desire(? )
Red lights - burning desire
White lights c put you to bed (? )
Red lights- in the city
Streetlights - shadow the night
Sunshine - if you need some one
Headlights - that young bloods alright
Try as I can but (? )
I cant keep away
Not today
She brings me to my knees
Try as I can but (? )
I cant keep away
I want you babe(? )
Red lights - oh, I want you
Red lights - I need it
Red lights - you get too heavy
Red lights
song performed by by Uriah Heep
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Dead & Broken
Too many things Ive never spoken
Im not feeling fine
I never told you what to do
I never made you a promise that you could hold me to
Thatll be the day you see me crying
Everyday, I still say youre dead and broken
Everyday, I still say youre dead and broken
Youre dead and broken
How many faces can you show me?
How many times can you be right?
Another world of fantasy
Another reason for dramatizing everything
Taking it all in just one more time
Im dying
Everyday, I still say youre dead and broken
Everyday, I still say youre dead and broken
Youre dead and broken
Sorry to see that youre underestimated lately
Id rather be dead and broken than living in your grace
Everyday, I still say youre dead and broken
Everyday, I still say youre dead and broken
Youre dead and broken
Youre dead and broken
Youre dead and broken
Youre dead and broken
Youre dead and broken
Youre dead and broken
Youre dead and broken
song performed by by Godsmack
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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He Wishes His Beloved Were Dead
WERE you but lying cold and dead,
And lights were paling out of the West,
You would come hither, and bend your head,
And I would lay my head on your breast;
And you would murmur tender words,
Forgiving me, because you were dead:
Nor would you rise and hasten away,
Though you have the will of the wild birds,
But know your hair was bound and wound
About the stars and moon and sun:
O would, beloved, that you lay
Under the dock-leaves in the ground,
While lights were paling one by one.
poem by William Butler Yeats
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The Time That God Walks
why does deliverance feel like
the old woman's jagged fingernails
digging in the dirt?
while poetry screams from
weeping willows and dead spiders...
light finds it way through crack and crevice,
dancing in the little boy's palm!
there is a song that dwells
in things that seem most still.
graveyards come alive in the dead of night.
and streetlights write history
on streets deserted and quiet.
while lamps shine in closed windows
as a testament to memory.
this is the time that god walks,
her long hair grey with suffering.
and stopping on the corner she lights a smoke,
while stray cats rub against her bony legs.
'if only they had drank the cup of suffering,
they would have known! '
she puts out her smoke,
and starts sweeping away bodies!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Awaiting my next posting
I hear a distant bugle calling
bravely as the twilights falling
The plaintive notes of the last post,
when I’m alone affect me most.
As I remember those who fell
in defence of liberty.
Where they lie now no man can
but I remember vividly
Lofty, only five foot two
and his best mate big Geordie Green.
Taff Thomas and Dai Williams too.
I wonder what they might have been
Had death not claimed them one and all
selected them quite randomly.
Each time I hear that bugle call
a sense of guilt falls over me.
Why was I chosen to survive
to wed and raise a family.
When they gave all they had to give
each death a separate tragedy.
But I live on. I know not why
death chose my friends, left me behind.
The only thing I know is I
Must keep their memories in mind.
The plaintive notes the bugler plays
that drift across the fields to me
Will mark too, the end of my days
when I rejoin their company.
7-Feb-08
poem by Ivor Or Ivor.e Hogg
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See The Light
Well I came down here from manhattan
to see the lights on the mall
but when I got here early this morning
well I couldn't see any at all
so I walked a little further
and much to my surprise
there was a hot cool woman
in a chevy staring into my eyes
I've just got to see the lights
I've just got to see the lights
I've just got to see the lights
Alright
She said now don't walk any further
Just jump into my car
And we can head on down the highway
But you'd better not go too far
'Cos my daddy he's big business
So we've gotta be back by tonight
But we can still have some fun now
If we head on downtown to see the lights
I've just got to see the lights
I've just got to see the lights
I've just got to see the lights
I've just got to see the lights
I've just got to see the lights
I've just got to see the lights
Well, we ended up in this cafe
'Bout twenty-five minutes to one
See, she took me to this nightclub
And the music went on and on
Well we were set down to get coffee
When in walked her old man
No matter how we tried to explain it well
We couldn't make him understand
I've just got to see the lights
I've just got to see the lights
I've just got to see the lights
song performed by by Def Leppard
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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When Your Lights Turned On
(hicks / clarke / nash)
If I see the lights on in your room
If I see the lights on I call on you
Its a signal that hes gone
So Ill call you when your lights turned on
And Ill be happy to wait up until he goes
And Ill be happy to wait up until I know
That the coasts clear its all right
So Ill call you when your lights turned on
Everything you say about me gets right home
Thats why I put up with you this way
Everything you say about me gets right home
I wish that he would go and I could stay
That the coasts clear its all right
So Ill call you when youre lights turned on
Verse 3
Just for how long can our love go on like this
If you thought more about me youd end all this
But when your lights on its all right
So Ill call you when youre lights turned on
song performed by by Hollies
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Romance Is Dead
A glass of cheap vodka tastes just like depression -
It hurts to be sober tonight.
The mirror reflects such a hideous expression
That I promptly turn off the light.
Some porno, then casual sex with my hand...
Oh damn! This is something I shouldn't have said.
Why don't you believe that I need no boyfriend -
No problems, no worries, no tears, no regret?
Romance is dead,
And so am I,
I can't forget
My perfect lie.
I still recall
The times we had.
Oh well, that's all.
Romance is dead.
I can't fall asleep, so I get on the net,
Where I claim to be an online super-wh-,
I find guys like you just to make them all fret,
My tease makes them want me, but they can't get more
Than flirt for some minutes, some sexual tension
And then disconnect. Their muse disappears.
I've had a good time with these cruel intentions -
Enough for today. See you later, my dear.
Romance is dead,
And so am I,
I can't forget
My perfect lie.
I still recall
The times we had.
Oh well, that's all.
Romance is dead.
Romance is dead!
You say it is stupid, it doesn't make sense,
But you are the first to have buried romance.
poem by April Avalon
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Oh, How I Hate To Get Up In The Morning
I've been a soldier quite a while
And I would like to state
The life is simply wonderful
The Army food is great
I sleep with ninety-seven others in a wooden hut
I love them all
They all love me
It's very lovely but
Oh!How I hate to get up in the morning
Oh!How I'd love to remain in bed
For the hardest blow of all
Is to hear the bugler call
Ya gotta get up
Ya gotta get up
Ya gotta get up this morning
Someday I'm going to murder the bugler
Someday they're going to find him dead
I'll amputate his reveille
And step upon it heavily
And spend the rest of my life in bed
[alternate lines in 2nd chorus:]
And then I'll get that other pup
The guy who wakes the bugler up
song performed by by Irving Berlin
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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0029 Monte Carlo
So this was it. I'd passed through years ago
as a hitch-hiker, spinning out our 25 pounds
max allowance, over three hot weeks of France
until I was sick of tough-skinned monster tomatoes
and baguettes without butter; as we made our sweaty way
to Monaco's, surprisingly, Communist youth hostel
beyond the gas works and the soccer ground,
around the path at the foot of the cliffs...no romance there.
But here I was, as a journalist, two nights in a hotel
of grand aspiration, where guests left empty
the spacious restaurant and its tasteless menu.
Monte Carlo out of season; shrunken to a provincial town;
the waves hitting hard and cold against its promenade.
Tired after a day of work, foot-hot amid white-gloved uniforms,
I felt I should squeeze something memorable from the single day
as the lights went on. Too travel-stained to enter the Casino,
placed where the pier would be in an English seaside town -
but I hovered. It was a stage set which had rashly intruded
into real, daily life; and waiting for a cast
rehearsing somewhere else. I made my way (the phrase
is singularly inadequate) back to the deserted hotel
where even the lights were sad and still.
In the deserted square outside the Casino,
a woman passed me, returning home, I guessed, from the Casino,
but hardly dressed for gambling's evening glamour;
a middle-to-ageing Englishwoman, from her walk. Her room,
I would think, would be small, high
on the steep hill of the working class. She visits
every day; for several evening hours
under the shaded table lights,
everything in the world is possible...The doorman
at the Casino only acknowledges her
out of season, when the locals and the regulars
are tolerated, with their modest bets;
almost seen as staff.
As she passed,
she placed some ticket in her purse -
one of those large purses (as the English call them)
almost hand-bag size; dark soft but rough material, it spoke
of 19th-century gentility in the dimly lit and empty square.
A large purse, waiting; filled with empty hope.
That was my Monte Carlo moment. From that capacious
but not, not stuffed-with-banknotes bag, reality and romance
hit me together, as if my brain had been
bludgeoned with the truth. Here in its lonely addiction
was the tawdry face of the Casino, denying all the myths,
the glamour, the stories, the accretions of second-hand
imaginations, the distant history that might have fired me
in some bygone age, of cigars and diamonds, furs and powdered
faces, champagne and caviar, marcelled hair, wild laughter, eager
for the glittering promise of the best of life; written up
by some envious, cheap journalist.
The square deserted, the smell of petrol lingered in the roses
in the warm, tired Mediterranean night. You, this way; I, that.
poem by Michael Shepherd
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Silence Of The Damned
Can your hear the silence.
something isn't right.
dead is the night.
who turn out the lights.
then they converge upon me like vulture.
a breeze of wind blows and
bring the chills right down to my very bones.
I know I'm done for but don't even care
cause its not my nightmare but yours.
twisted and turned. living on dead memories.
eating upon them so slowly.
Can you hear the silence.
something isn't right. dead is the night.
Who turned off the lights.
who is it this time.
again they converge.
but this isn't my nightmare.
its yours. watch in despair.
suck in your last bit of air.
no life left for me.
giving up and letting the leeches feed.
for everyone has their needs.
everyone needs to bleed.
and this time its you destiny.
Can you hear the silence.
something isn't right.
dead is the night.
who turned of the light.
who is it this time.
just remember this is not my nightmare but your.
you open the door welcome them in.
so now you must try to fend hyenas off if you can.
if not welcome to the damned.
poem by Ace Of Black Hearts
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Young Lover
One life to live
No time to pretend
No wins no loss
No heroes in the end
No dreams no plans no promises
Young lover
Just turn out the lights
One kiss
One softly whispered yes
No talk oh no, no tears
No hearts to repossess
No names no chains no hostages
Young lover
Just turn out the lights
Slip under the cover
Of the night
Young lover young lover young lover
Everythings all right
Young lover
Just turn out the lights
song performed by by Gino Vanelli
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Square Peg, Round Hole
He's a square peg in a round hole
Misfit in a slick world
Don't play the game
Don't do what he's told
He's a square peg in a round hole
Square peg don't care
The bright lights he's not there
Catch the shadows see him slip away
Square peg that's what they say
Square peg, Suare peg
Square peg, you have got to be strong
Square peg, he's got his own song
Square peg, I'll see you around
Square peg, face down
Square peg, round hole
song performed by by Chris Rea
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Call
(France, August first, 1914)
Far and near, high and clear,
Hark to the call of War!
Over the gorse and the golden dells,
Ringing and swinging of clamorous bells,
Praying and saying of wild farewells:
War! War! War!
High and low, all must go:
Hark to the shout of War!
Leave to the women the harvest yield;
Gird ye, men, for the sinister field;
A sabre instead of a scythe to wield:
War! Red War!
Rich and poor, lord and boor,
Hark to the blast of War!
Tinker and tailor and millionaire,
Actor in triumph and priest in prayer,
Comrades now in the hell out there,
Sweep to the fire of War!
Prince and page, sot and sage,
Hark to the roar of War!
Poet, professor and circus clown,
Chimney-sweeper and fop o' the town,
Into the pot and be melted down:
Into the pot of War!
Women all, hear the call,
The pitiless call of War!
Look your last on your dearest ones,
Brothers and husbands, fathers, sons:
Swift they go to the ravenous guns,
The gluttonous guns of War.
Everywhere thrill the air
The maniac bells of War.
There will be little of sleeping to-night;
There will be wailing and weeping to-night;
Death's red sickle is reaping to-night:
War! War! War!
poem by Robert William Service
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At The Grave Of The Unknown Soldier
He was a brave soldier he died young and brave
And for more than six decades he lay in his grave
And still at the dawning of each war memorial day
At his grave site a young bugler the last post does play.
Known as the Unknown Soldier one without a name
Still he had a mum and a dad just the same
And when he did not return home when the fighting was done
They grieved at their loss and they wept for their son.
The war to end all wars of all wars 'tis said
But more wars are fought and we have more war dead
And at the grave of the unknown soldier the last post is played
And to honour the war dead another parade.
Old war men do tell us young soldiers fight and die
For freedom and liberty that is a lie
They went to war when young they are now old and gray
Some grow old not wiser some are known to say.
That they were fighting for freedom and justice they believed to be true
And they were quite gallant to give them their due
But many deprived of their human rights in the World of today
And that does seem a very sad thing for to say.
With heads bowed old men showing their years in gray
At the grave of the Unknown Soldier at the dawn of the day
In silence do listen as a young bugler the last post does play
For one who fought and died in a war far away.
poem by Francis Duggan
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On Broadway
(barry mann/cynthia weil/mike stoller/jerry leiber)
They say the neon lights are bright
On broadway
They say theres always magic in the air
But when youre walkin down that street
And you aint got enough to eat
The glitter rubs right off and youre nowhere
They say the chicks are somethin else
On broadway
But lookin at them just gives me the blues
cause how ya gonna make some time
When all you got is one thin dime
And one thin dime wont even shine your shoes
They say that I wont last too long
On broadway
Ill catch a greyhound bus for home they all say
But theyre dead wrong, I know they are
cause I can play this here guitar
And I wont quit till Im a star
On broadway
But theyre dead wrong, I know they are
cause I can play this here guitar
And I wont quit till Im a star
On broadway
On broadway
Im gonna make it, yeah
On broadway
Ill be a big, big man
On broadway
Ill have my name in lights
On broadway
Everybody gonna know me
On broadway
All up and down broadway
On broadway
song performed by by Eric Carmen
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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How Many Lights Do You See?
How many lights do you see?
How many lights do you see?
There's one to say that night has come
And there's one that guards this jagged shore
And there's one to call the children home
And there's one to light the path they take
How many lights do you see?
How many lights do you see?
There's one to keep the shadows off
And there's one that tells me she got home
And there's one to read his novel by
And there's one that warms this dreary room
And there's one to watch the baby sleep
And there's one to count the blinking stars
And there's one that I just can't forget
And there's one that I remember too
How many lights do you see?
How many lights do you see?
There's one that waits for closing time
And there's one that gets left on all night
And there's one that marks the western sky
And it shines down on the quiet street
And there's one that floods the darker parts
And there's one that hurts my tired eyes
And there's one that says she's not asleep
And there's one that waits for her to wake
How many lights do you see?
How many lights do you see?
There is one that spills out on the beach
And it sparkles on the jetting rocks
And there is one that waits for tired ships
That sleep within this tired port
song performed by by Bright Eyes
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Blow Your Bugle, Soldier Man
Blow your bugle, soldier man
For our young heroes
In their flag covered boxes
In the few years they lived
We taught them
How to die for
Love of country
They are home now
Blow your bugle, soldier man
Blow Taps
It’s lights out
poem by Stanley Cooper
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