The Tommies Lot

While general’s drink their claret wine
In taverns far behind the lines
The English Tommy spills another wine

On Flanders table made from mothers pride
In front of guns in faltered stride
The sweet wine of youth seeps away
Dragging dreams of tomorrows men
Into broken hearts to be remembered by she.
A vintage lost to you and me

And, when autumns harvest came
The Tommy was the crop,
The Somme and Verdun is where life was stopped
And when winter froze the ground
The Tommy slept with reaper sound
Content to die with enemies damned
Caressed by yesterday’s ghosts in this Flanders land

When loved ones sent letters from home
The Tommy bore silent pain alone
For tears are for lovers and kisses for wives
Now replaced by the tears of loss
And boys too young to find love

Their first kiss that of the bullet
For they were not too young to die
Though “mother” was often their last dying cry

Now the guns are silent
And the fields are green
The marble cross the epitaph to nightmares dream
In death the axis and Allies are equal
In life we failed to stop the sequel,

So remember that cross and remember these lads
Remember the wives and remember the dads
Rest in peace our brave Tommy lads.