roy may

Don’t you sometimes think it odd
That wars are fought in the name of God?
Behind religion armies hide
Claiming God is on their side
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The weather was just how I liked it
Looking like it would stay dry
The breeze had the sharp tinge of winter
Beneath a low overcast sky
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The Battle of the Atlantic

We’ve heard of the famous Mighty Hood that was sunk by a Bismarck shell
We know how many men were lost and the Skippers name as well
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Today I heard an ancient song that took me by surprise,
A song that since creation had filled our country skies.
A song that has for centuries filled mans heart with joy,
A song that brought back memories of when I was a boy.
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The air is thick with dust and flame, who started this? Who is to blame?
Shells and rockets rake the field yet neither side is like to yield
There’s no retreat, no going back, just blindly forward in attack
Men are wounded. Men lose limbs. And those who die we praise with hymns
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It seems to me the worlds gone mad
Things now are good that once were bad
These shifting values make me sad
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The pen is greater than the sword or so it’s often said.
A poet’s word still stirs the heart long after he is dead.
The 'Elegy' of Thomas Gray can still provoke a thought.
And Campbell’s 'Ullin’s Daughter' proves that anger gains you nought.
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At dawn in the misty silence I saw before me spread
Hundreds of ghostly tombstones marking out the dead
Here beneath the sodden earth they lay in eternal sleep
This is a place of sorrow where those who come here weep
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I’ve lived a full three score and ten and seen a thing or two,
of life and death and love and hurt and pleasure.
Is it just age or memory that now distorts my view
of things that I believe mankind should treasure?
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George is in his eighties and he’s seen it all before
He was born in the depression and was wounded in the war
He hadn’t been a hero, but George had done his bit
His legs had both been broken when a piece of shrapnel hit
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'Stand up straight' yelled the judge 'Tell the court how you plead' he enquired of the young man accused
'You are here to be tried of a heinous crime so why are you looking amused'.
'Not Guilty! M’laud' Replied the accused 'And I’ll tell you what’s making me smile
I was looking at that thing you’ve got on your head, I’ve seen nothing like that for a while'
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O how I wish that then was now
When horses pulled the farmers plough
When steam propelled the midnight train
I’ll never see those times again
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For years I’ve tried so very hard
To try to emulate a Bard
Though I sit up half the night
and struggle as I try to write
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Alas I find it quite perverse, that I can only write in verse, the habit has become a curse
It’s time I though of quitting
I’m very envious of those, who effortlessly turn out prose, that without rhyme just some how flows
Their skill is unremitting.
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Where would you like to be buried they asked
Well really that’s not my concern
It won’t bother me if I’m under a tree
Or stuck on a shelf in an urn
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Who are you? . And where are you from? . The document enquired
I was not in the mood for this for I was feeling tired
The first bit was quite easy, as I simply wrote my name
The second part I found I couldn’t answer quite the same
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The single church bells eerie boom
Serves only to enhance the gloom,
They pass the freshly open tomb
They’ve come to say goodbye.
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