11yrs and below
 

The Lost Boys

I look up at the sun,
I know that someday soon it could be my last one.
I'm cold inside, but I have to fight,
For it is my country therefore my right.
A new day begins, the sun in my eyes,
I loaded my rifle in terror, walking out, I hear crys.
Death is near, I sense fear.
Samuels and I are nearly there.
"The Turks are coming! The Turks are coming!",
Sergeant Bailey shouts, Our regiment is running now.
Samuels falls on my hands, I shed a tear,
From now on, it is real we are here!
Blood on my hands, fear in my heart,
Now its my turn to take part.
Clouds of dust and smoke fill the air,
I hate this it's so unfair.
I stare at the moon in the noisy night sky,
And I worry about other regiments and their plight.
Over and over I think about Samuels and the others,
What will they tell their mothers?

By Chrissy Johns, age 11

Forever gone
But never forgotten

I remember his smile
So cheerful and happy

Standing up for what he believed in
Fighting in a country so far, far away

I remember his smile
So cheerful and happy

For this is all I have now
Memories of a brave soldier

I will never forget.

By Lisa Qian, age 10

12 - 17 years
  

Just a Hang Over

Splitting pain
jolted him awake
elephants dancing on his eyelids
and he’d say
‘It’s just a hangover.’
but it never was.

Midnight whispers
The rank stench of death.
Fear. Heat. Boredom.
Children’s faces.
And then, he’d swipe the
invisible mosquitoes away.

The raw grief
never grows old
when I imagine
the hell of those islands.
How the memories
clouded him.

His peace of mind,
like so many others,
sacrificed for freedom.
I should be glad
for I was not widowed
and yet, somehow, I was.

Time has not quenched
the anger which burns
at this beast called war
ripping away
the man
I used to know.

Okinawa fractured his world.
Forever distant,
my husband
could never see his actions
as brave.
Yet he was.

By Lydia Whyte, age 12

Our children.

A child -
trips in the playground,
and the world rushes
to help.

A child –
is shot in the street,
and the world…
looks away.

What if that child was
his child,
her child,
your child?

Is there a difference?

He was our child.

By Martin Luk, age 14

18+ years,
Poetry
  

Poppy

I brought a poppy yesterday
from a grey haired old lady
outside Pak 'n Save
she was smiling up at me
as I dropped a coin in the box
that said donations please,
donations please.

And I read the Herald on the train
supplement edition with a long list of names
paper memories of men that died
and the horror stories
of those that survived
and tell me
what did they say...

Ain’t it something
about a field in Flanders
about 1914 and the year of '45.
Ain’t it something
about tyranny and freedom and pain
and the will
and the will
to never let it happen again
never let it happen again.

Now Winky's a member
of the RSA
You get a damn good meal there
or so they say
and I've only been once myself
when Jean finished work
and we had that final bash

And outside that place
they've got a gun
standing on the corner
pointing at the sun
In a Henderson suburban street
where the graves of the past
and our lives meet
and tell me what does that say...

Ain’t it something
about a field in Flanders
about 1914 and the year of '45.
Ain’t it something
about tyranny and freedom and pain
and the will
and the will
to never let it happen again
never let it happen again.

Call it glory
call it mud death and tears...

Ain’t it something
about a field in Flanders
about 1914 and the year of '45.
Aint it something
about tyranny and freedom and pain
and the will
and the will
to never let it happen again
never let it happen again.

By Roger White. 

In Remembrance

The bands, they played and the crowds cheered them on
The flags were waving and the sun, how it shone.
They believed in what they were going to do,
For God and country, it was right, their due.
‘We’ll be home for Christmas,’ they shouted to all,
‘We’ll make these Jerries run and fall.’
Sadly they didn’t count on the mud and the rain,
And for some they would never come home again.
They died where they fell in a hail of gun fire,
No bands were playing just more stinkin’ mire.
It was a war to end wars, so they were told,
But years again later it came again to enfold,
A world that was – supposedly free.
Who were they kidding, not you, not me.
The bands they played again and the crowds they all cheered,
But deep in some hearts the future they feared.
Would they come home as they went away?
Whole and happy, living each day.
Sadly yet again we remember the dead.
Those who lie buried their names we have read.
Red poppies of Flanders we pin on our chests,
To remember all wars, and those buried at rest.
We lay our wreaths and have our parades,
Each ANZAC DAY, lest we forget what they gave.

By Marie Higgs