A Song Of The Sandbags
No, Bill, I'm not a-spooning out no patriotic tosh
(The cove be'ind the sandbags ain't a death-or-glory cuss).
And though I strafes 'em good and 'ard I doesn't 'ate the Boche,
I guess they're mostly decent, just the same as most of us.
I guess they loves their 'omes and kids as much as you or me;
And just the same as you or me they'd rather shake than fight;
And if we'd 'appened to be born at Berlin-on-the-Spree,
We'd be out there with 'Ans and Fritz, dead sure that we was right.
A-standin' up to the sandbags
It's funny the thoughts wot come;
Starin' into the darkness,
'Earin' the bullets 'um;
(Zing! Zip! Ping! Rip!
'ark 'ow the bullets 'um!)
A-leanin' against the sandbags
Wiv me rifle under me ear,
Oh, I've 'ad more thoughts on a sentry-go
Than I used to 'ave in a year.
I wonder, Bill, if 'Ans and Fritz is wonderin' like me
Wot's at the bottom of it all? Wot all the slaughter's for?
'E thinks 'e's right (of course 'e ain't) but this we both agree,
If them as made it 'ad to fight, there wouldn't be no war.
If them as lies in feather beds while we kips in the mud;
If them as makes their fortoons while we fights for 'em like 'ell;
If them as slings their pot of ink just 'ad to sling their blood:
By Crust! I'm thinkin' there 'ud be another tale to tell.
Shiverin' up to the sandbags,
With a hicicle 'stead of a spine,
Don't it seem funny the things you think
'Ere in the firin' line:
(Whee! Whut! Ziz! Zut!
Lord! 'ow the bullets whine!)
Hunkerin' down when a star-shell
Cracks in a sputter of light,
You can jaw to yer soul by the sandbags
Most any old time o' night.
They talks o' England's glory and a-'oldin' of our trade,
Of Empire and 'igh destiny until we're fair flim-flammed;
But if it's for the likes o' that that bloody war is made,
Then wot I say is: Empire and 'igh destiny be damned!
There's only one good cause, Bill, for poor blokes like us to fight:
That's self-defence, for 'earth and 'ome, and them that bears our name;
And that's wot I'm a-doin' by the sandbags 'ere to-night. . . .
But Fritz out there will tell you 'e's a-doin' of the same.
Starin' over the sandbags,
Sick of the 'ole damn thing;
Firin' to keep meself awake,
'Earin' the bullets sing.
(Hiss! Twang! Tsing! Pang!
Saucy the bullets sing.)
Dreamin' 'ere by the sandbags
Of a day when war will cease,
When 'Ans and Fritz and Bill and me
Will clink our mugs in fraternity,
And the Brotherhood of Labour will be
The Brotherhood of Peace.
poem by Robert William Service
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Related quotes
Come On Home
Dark clouds are comin' like an army
Soon the sky will open up and disarm me
You will go just like you've gone before
One sad soldier off to war, enemies that only you can see.
Dishes stacked, the table cleared
It's always like the scene of the last supper here
You speak so cryptically that's not news to me
The flood is here it will carry you
And I've got work to do.
Come on home, the team you're hitched to has a mind of its own
But it's just the forces of your past you've fought before
Come back here and shut the door
I'm stacking sandbags against the river of your troubles.
There is fire there is lust
Some will trade it all for someone they could trust
There's a bag of silver for a box of nails
It's so simple the betrayal
Though it's known to change the world and what's to come.
Just come on home, the team you're hitched to has a mind of its own
But it's just the forces of your past you've fought before
Don't you recognize them anymore
I'm stacking sandbags against the river of your troubles.
There's the given and the expected
I count my blessings while I eye what I've neglected
Is this for better is this for worse
You're all jammed up and the dam's about to burst.
I hear the owl in the night
I realize that some things never are made right
By some will we string together here
Days to months and months to years
What if everything we have adds up to nothing.
Come on home, the team you're hitched to has a mind of its own
But it's just the forces of your past you've fought before
Come back here and shut the door
I'm stacking sandbags against the river of your troubles.
song performed by by Indigo Girls
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Dollars drowned silver,
dimes, and quarters' sum sewered,
greed with no sandbags.
haiku by Val Morehouse
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Great War Poems
I.
The same old soldiers walking along the same old skyline
2.
Dead hand through the sandbags reaching out for the creamand white butterfly
3
mud/water under duckboards/mud/rats scamper in starshell darkness/mud/smell of shit and rotting bodies/mud/resting your sweaty forehead on the sandbags OVER THE TOP the first men in the lunar landscape.
4.
What did you do to the Great Whore, Daddy?'
5.
Poppies slightly outoffocus and farmcarts bringing in the peaceful dead.
6.
The ghost of Wilfred Oven selling matches outside the Burlington Arcade.
7.
Seafog. Red flaring lights from the shore batteries. The roar of shells rattle of machineguns. Water running in the bilges. My feet slipping on the damp cobbles of the quayside.
8.
DON'T BE VAGUE BLAME GENERAL HAIG.
9.
four white feathers clutched in a bloodstained envelope
10.
a skull nestling in a bed of wild strawberries/boots mouldering green with fungus/saplings thrusting through rusting helmets/sunken barges drifting full of leaves down autumn rivers.
poem by Adrian Henri
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Sandpaper headlines
Sandbags stolen from sandbank
Fishy tail news flash
haiku by Ken e Hall
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Campus Sonnets: Return - 1917
'The College will reopen Sept. -.'
`Catalogue'.
I was just aiming at the jagged hole
Torn in the yellow sandbags of their trench,
When something threw me sideways with a wrench,
And the skies seemed to shrivel like a scroll
And disappear . . . and propped against the bole
Of a big elm I lay, and watched the clouds
Float through the blue, deep sky in speckless crowds,
And I was clean again, and young, and whole.
Lord, what a dream that was! And what a doze
Waiting for Bill to come along to class!
I've cut it now - and he - Oh, hello, Fred!
Why, what's the matter? - here - don't be an ass,
Sit down and tell me! - What do you suppose?
I dreamed I . . . am I . . . wounded? 'You are dead.'
poem by Stephen Vincent Benet
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Return - 1917
"The College will reopen Sept. --."
`Catalogue'.
I was just aiming at the jagged hole
Torn in the yellow sandbags of their trench,
When something threw me sideways with a wrench,
And the skies seemed to shrivel like a scroll
And disappear . . . and propped against the bole
Of a big elm I lay, and watched the clouds
Float through the blue, deep sky in speckless crowds,
And I was clean again, and young, and whole.
Lord, what a dream that was! And what a doze
Waiting for Bill to come along to class!
I've cut it now -- and he -- Oh, hello, Fred!
Why, what's the matter? -- here -- don't be an ass,
Sit down and tell me! -- What do you suppose?
I dreamed I . . . am I . . . wounded? "You are dead."
poem by Stephen Vincent Benet
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The Ballad Of Soulful Sam
You want me to tell you a story, a yarn of the firin' line,
Of our thin red kharki 'eroes, out there where the bullets whine;
Out there where the bombs are bustin',
and the cannons like 'ell-doors slam --
Just order another drink, boys, and I'll tell you of Soulful Sam.
Oh, Sam, he was never 'ilarious, though I've 'ad some mates as was wus;
He 'adn't C. B. on his programme, he never was known to cuss.
For a card or a skirt or a beer-mug he 'adn't a friendly word;
But when it came down to Scriptures, say! Wasn't he just a bird!
He always 'ad tracts in his pocket, the which he would haste to present,
And though the fellers would use them in ways that they never was meant,
I used to read 'em religious, and frequent I've been impressed
By some of them bundles of 'oly dope he carried around in his vest.
For I -- and oh, 'ow I shudder at the 'orror the word conveys!
'Ave been -- let me whisper it 'oarsely -- a gambler 'alf of me days;
A gambler, you 'ear -- a gambler. It makes me wishful to weep,
And yet 'ow it's true, my brethren! -- I'd rather gamble than sleep.
I've gambled the 'ole world over, from Monte Carlo to Maine;
From Dawson City to Dover, from San Francisco to Spain.
Cards! They 'ave been me ruin. They've taken me pride and me pelf,
And when I'd no one to play with -- why, I'd go and I'd play by meself.
And Sam 'e would sit and watch me, as I shuffled a greasy deck,
And 'e'd say: "You're bound to Perdition,"
And I'd answer: "Git off me neck!"
And that's 'ow we came to get friendly, though built on a different plan,
Me wot's a desprite gambler, 'im sich a good young man.
But on to me tale. Just imagine . . . Darkness! The battle-front!
The furious 'Uns attackin'! Us ones a-bearin' the brunt!
Me crouchin' be'ind a sandbag, tryin' 'ard to keep calm,
When I 'ears someone singin' a 'ymn toon; be'old! it is Soulful Sam.
Yes; right in the crash of the combat, in the fury of flash and flame,
'E was shootin' and singin' serenely as if 'e enjoyed the same.
And there in the 'eat of the battle, as the 'ordes of demons attacked,
He dipped down into 'is tunic, and 'e 'anded me out a tract.
Then a star-shell flared, and I read it: Oh, Flee From the Wrath to Come!
Nice cheerful subject, I tell yer, when you're 'earin' the bullets 'um.
And before I 'ad time to thank 'im, just one of them bits of lead
Comes slingin' along in a 'urry, and it 'its my partner. . . . Dead?
No, siree! not by a long sight! For it plugged 'im 'ard on the chest,
Just where 'e'd tracts for a army corps stowed away in 'is vest.
On its mission of death that bullet 'ustled along, and it caved
A 'ole in them tracts to 'is 'ide, boys -- but the life o' me pal was saved.
And there as 'e showed me in triumph, and 'orror was chokin' me breath,
On came another bullet on its 'orrible mission of death;
On through the night it cavorted, seekin' its 'aven of rest,
And it zipped through a crack in the sandbags, and it wolloped me bang on the breast.
Was I killed, do you ask? Oh no, boys. Why am I sittin' 'ere
Gazin' with mournful vision at a mug long empty of beer?
With a throat as dry as a -- oh, thanky! I don't much mind if I do.
Beer with a dash of 'ollands, that's my particular brew.
Yes, that was a terrible moment. It 'ammered me 'ard o'er the 'eart;
It bowled me down like a nine-pin, and I looked for the gore to start;
And I saw in the flash of a moment, in that thunder of hate and strife,
Me wretched past like a pitchur -- the sins of a gambler's life.
For I 'ad no tracts to save me, to thwart that mad missile's doom;
I 'ad no pious pamphlets to 'elp me to cheat the tomb;
I 'ad no 'oly leaflets to baffle a bullet's aim;
I'd only -- a deck of cards, boys, but . . . it seemed to do just the same.
poem by Robert William Service
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In the Trenches
I snatched two poppies
From the parapet’s ledge,
Two bright red poppies
That winked on the ledge.
Behind my ear
I stuck one through,
One blood red poppy
I gave to you.
The sandbags narrowed
And screwed out our jest,
And tore the poppy
You had on your breast ...
Down - a shell - O! Christ,
I am choked ... safe ... dust blind, I
See trench floor poppies
Strewn. Smashed you lie.
poem by Isaac Rosenberg
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Poem
(Abbreviated from the conversation with Mr. T E H.
Over the flat slope of St Eloi
A wide wall of sandbags.
Night,
In the silence desultory men
Pottering over small fires, cleaning their mess-tins:
To and fro, from the lines,
Men walk as on Piccadilly,
Making paths in the dark,
Through scattered dead horses,
Over a dead Belgian’s body.
The Germans have rockets. The English have no rockets,
Behind the lines, cannon, hidden, lying back miles.
Before the line, chaos.
My mind is a corridor. The minds about me are
corridors.
Nothing suggests itself. There is nothing to do but keep on.
poem by Ezra Pound
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The Volunteer
Sez I: My Country calls? Well, let it call.
I grins perlitely and declines wiv thanks.
Go, let 'em plaster every blighted wall,
'Ere's ONE they don't stampede into the ranks.
Them politicians with their greasy ways;
Them empire-grabbers -- fight for 'em? No fear!
I've seen this mess a-comin' from the days
Of Algyserious and Aggydear:
I've felt me passion rise and swell,
But . . . wot the 'ell, Bill? Wot the 'ell?
Sez I: My Country? Mine? I likes their cheek.
Me mud-bespattered by the cars they drive,
Wot makes my measly thirty bob a week,
And sweats red blood to keep meself alive!
Fight for the right to slave that they may spend,
Them in their mansions, me 'ere in my slum?
No, let 'em fight wot's something to defend:
But me, I've nothin' -- let the Kaiser come.
And so I cusses 'ard and well,
But . . . wot the 'ell, Bill? Wot the 'ell?
Sez I: If they would do the decent thing,
And shield the missis and the little 'uns,
Why, even _I_ might shout "God save the King",
And face the chances of them 'ungry guns.
But we've got three, another on the way;
It's that wot makes me snarl and set me jor:
The wife and nippers, wot of 'em, I say,
If I gets knocked out in this blasted war?
Gets proper busted by a shell,
But . . . wot the 'ell, Bill? Wot the 'ell?
Ay, wot the 'ell's the use of all this talk?
To-day some boys in blue was passin' me,
And some of 'em they 'ad no legs to walk,
And some of 'em they 'ad no eyes to see.
And -- well, I couldn't look 'em in the face,
And so I'm goin', goin' to declare
I'm under forty-one and take me place
To face the music with the bunch out there.
A fool, you say! Maybe you're right.
I'll 'ave no peace unless I fight.
I've ceased to think; I only know
I've gotta go, Bill, gotta go.
poem by Robert William Service
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Bonehead Bill
I wonder 'oo and wot 'e was,
That 'Un I got so slick.
I couldn't see 'is face because
The night was 'ideous thick.
I just made out among the black
A blinkin' wedge o' white;
Then biff! I guess I got 'im crack --
The man I killed last night.
I wonder if account o' me
Some wench will go unwed,
And 'eaps o' lives will never be,
Because 'e's stark and dead?
Or if 'is missis damns the war,
And by some candle light,
Tow-headed kids are prayin' for
The Fritz I copped last night.
I wonder, 'struth, I wonder why
I 'ad that 'orful dream?
I saw up in the giddy sky
The gates o' God agleam;
I saw the gates o' 'eaven shine
Wiv everlastin' light:
And then . . . I knew that I'd got mine,
As 'e got 'is last night.
Aye, bang beyond the broodin' mists
Where spawn the mother stars,
I 'ammered wiv me bloody fists
Upon them golden bars;
I 'ammered till a devil's doubt
Fair froze me wiv affright:
To fink wot God would say about
The bloke I corpsed last night.
I 'ushed; I wilted wiv despair,
When, like a rosy flame,
I sees a angel standin' there
'Oo calls me by me name.
'E 'ad such soft, such shiny eyes;
'E 'eld 'is 'and and smiled;
And through the gates o' Paradise
'E led me like a child.
'E led me by them golden palms
Wot 'ems that jeweled street;
And seraphs was a-singin' psalms,
You've no ideer 'ow sweet;
Wiv cheroobs crowdin' closer round
Than peas is in a pod,
'E led me to a shiny mound
Where beams the throne o' God.
And then I 'ears God's werry voice:
"Bill 'agan, 'ave no fear.
Stand up and glory and rejoice
For 'im 'oo led you 'ere."
And in a nip I seemed to see:
Aye, like a flash o' light,
My angel pal I knew to be
The chap I plugged last night.
Now, I don't claim to understand --
They calls me Bonehead Bill;
They shoves a rifle in me 'and,
And show me 'ow to kill.
Me job's to risk me life and limb,
But . . . be it wrong or right,
This cross I'm makin', it's for 'im,
The cove I croaked last night.
poem by Robert William Service
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When Bullets Speak
When bullets speak
It ushers Silence
As all become weak
End of the sentence.
When bullets speak
More blood will flow
There's no Peace to seek
More Wars will grow.
When bullets speak
No one to counter
For the dead are meek
Lie in surrender.
poem by Cynthia Buhain-Baello
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Sapphire Bullets Of Pure Love
Pistol shots
Gun shots
Pistol shots
Gun shots
Bullets from a revolver
Bullets from a gun
Bullets through the atmosphere
Here they come
John, Ive been bad
And theyre coming after me
Done someone wrong
And I fear that it was me
Sapphire bullets
Bullets of pure love
Sapphire bullets
Bullets of pure love
song performed by by They Might Be Giants
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Ultimate Sacrifice
When nations turn from peace to war,
Each soul must question why...
When Death itself is at the door,
To bring its long goodbye...
To think, that leaders lead us all,
To back them to the hilt.
It's then we see our heroes fall,
When each of them is killed...
When little children shake their heads,
Disgusted at such things,
It's right to pray beside our beds,
Condemning what war brings.
The need for guns and bullets grows
And even bombs are made -
Efficiently Man fights his foes
And in their graves they're laid...
Who knows the good they could have done,
If peace had been their lot,
Instead of wars that must be won,
When nations turn from God?
If only love lived in each heart,
We'd share God's Paradise,
Instead of this, new conflicts start
And blood's our sacrifice...
For some, the cost was loss of health...
For some, it's wasted time...
For some, the cost was death itself,
When they were in their prime.
Is this the wisest way to live,
With bombs and bullets, too?
Christ's sacrifice helps God forgive
The evil that men do...
poem by Denis Martindale
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Before The Bullets Fly
You know I hate to leave you babe
But I just cant waste my time....
Well youve got this jealous husband
And Im far too young to die,
I must move on away from here
Just before the bullets fly
Ive always been a gabler
Takin chances all my life....
Always smashin those love affairs
Just like shootin dice,
I staged the game girl
Thats what keeps me satisfied
And I can leave it in the nick of time
Just before the bullets fly
Solo
I lost my first bet
When I was twenty-one
Found myself in new orleans
On the wrong end of a gun....
The stakes keep getting higher......
But somehow I survive,
By knowin when the need became
Just before the bullets fly
Im knowing when the need became
Just before the bullets fly
Im knowing when the need became
Just before the bullets fly
song performed by by Allman Brothers Band
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Song Queen
She rules
The air waves
With beautiful voice
She who rules
The airwaves
With beautiful voice
Carves the cadence
Reflecting the effervescent
Views of beauty
Loads the cadence
That makes up beauty
She waves
A legendary appetite
For uploading
The punches, the loads
Of peaked beatific sandbags
In the exciting neighborhood of beauty
She goes
She comes
With superb entries
In the multicolored
Languages of the horizon
She covers
A lot
Of the territory of beauty
She
The immaculate
Song queen
poem by Uchechukwu Agodom
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Lay Down Your Arms
Lay down your arms and don't fight! !
For, true love is better than the bullets of war!
Think and reason up!
For, true love is better than the bullets of war!
So, we need to live in peace than fighting each other!
All in the name of who wants to be first.
poem by Edward Kofi Louis
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Hans and Fritz
Hans and Fritz were two Deutschers who lived side by side,
Remote from the world, its deceit and its pride:
With their pretzels and beer the spare moments were spent,
And the fruits of their labor were peace and content.
Hans purchased a horse of a neighbor one day,
And, lacking a part of the Geld, — as they say, —
Made a call upon Fritz to solicit a loan
To help him to pay for his beautiful roan.
Fritz kindly consented the money to lend,
And gave the required amount to his friend;
Remarking,—his own simple language to quote,—
"Berhaps it vas bedder ve make us a note."
The note was drawn up in their primitive way, —
"I, Hans, gets from Fritz feefty tollars to-day;"
When the question arose, the note being made,
"Vich von holds dot baper until it vas baid?"
"You geeps dot," says Fritz, "und den you vill know
You owes me dot money." Says Hans, "Dot ish so:
Dot makes me remempers I haf dot to bay,
Und I prings you der note und der money some day."
A month had expired, when Hans, as agreed,
Paid back the amount, and from debt he was freed.
Says Fritz, " Now dot settles us." Hans replies,
"Yaw: Now who dakes dot baper accordings by law ?"
"I geeps dot now, aind't it?" says Fritz ; " den, you see,
I alvays remempers you baid dot to me."
Says Hans, "Dot ish so: it vas now shust so blain,
Dot I knows vot to do ven I porrows again."
poem by Charles Follen Adams from Yawcob Strauss and Other Poems
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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It Is Now Night In Syria
It is now night in Syria!
And i pray that the freedom of the people;
Oh, freedom fighters! !
Fight on for your freedom,
For this world needs peace than the bullets of war!
As i see fallen faces gone too soon.
Shot and killed by the bullets of war,
Because my people asked for freedom;
Yes, this world is really not at rest! !
But, let us hope for peace everywhere;
For, it is now night in syria.
poem by Edward Kofi Louis
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Gimme Back My Bullets
(allen collins -- ronnie vanzant)
Life is so strange when its changin, yes indeed
Well Ive seen the hard times and the pressures been on me
But I keep on workin like the workin man do
And Ive got my act together, gonna walk all over you
(chorus)
Gimme back my bullets
Put em back where they belong
Aint foolin around cause I done had my fun
Aint gonna see no more damage done
Gimme back my bullets
Sweet talkin people done ran me out of town
And I drank enough whiskey to float a battleship around
But Im leavin this game one step ahead of you
And you will not hear me cry cause I do not sing the blues
(chorus)
Gimme back my bullets
Put em back where they belong
Aint foolin around cause I done had my fun
Aint gonna see no more damage done
Gimme back, gimme back my bullets
Oh, put em back... where they belong
Been up and down since I turned seventeen
Well Ive been on top, and then it seems I lost my dream
But I got it back, Im feelin better everyday
Tell all those pencil pushers, better get out of my way
(chorus)
Gimme back my bullets
Put em back where they belong
Aint foolin around, cause I done had my fun
Aint gonna see no more damage done
Gimme back, gimme back my bullets
Oh put em back where they belong
Gimme back my bullets
song performed by by Lynyrd Skynyrd
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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