Snow flakes….
Gently fall and melt
Crossing from this realm
It’s beautiful
No pity please
Valhalla awaits
Read my name
On granite walls
Listen for a soldier coming home
On a name whispered in the wind
Across the Glen
Remember us….
We lived we loved
We fell….
We will always be
Soldiers…..
© Tony McNally
Just like enemy tracer rounds
They can hypnotise you as they fly
Seeming to have no sound
Ours are green there’s are yellow
They bounce of rocks and disappear
Writing their name in the black sky
They can fill a soldier with fear
Your shoulder ache as you blast away
Flashes illuminating your mates
Sustained fire to the enemy front
Sending your foe to their fate
Back home in Blighty on Bonfire night
Sends you back thirty years to that hill
Where all that glittered was not gold
Not then for fun more to kill.
© Tony McNally
Cigarettes blinking like fireflies
Men together
Hot tea sipped
Tales of romance
Exaggerated
Eyes flicking in the mist
Weapons held close
Ammo checked
Completely in the moment
At ease with each other
Random chat
Football
Fighting
More sex
No eye contact
Macho men
Preparing
For history
Last drink of tea
Fag butts crushed underfoot
All at once
They turn
Like the tide
“Listen Inn.”
Then it began.
© Tony McNally
Black sky suddenly alight with Flames
Quiet mountains
Now engulfed in violence
Screams echo between the rocks
Heroic deeds
Life taken in an instance
A brother falls
Your heart torn out
Onwards you go
Into the pages of history
Just survive this hell
No thoughts of home
Slam home another magazine
Cordite burns your nostrils
Meaning your still of this earth
To move towards a wall of bullets
Why?
Because you’re a soldier
More fear of failing your comrades
Than dying for your Regiment
Crack thump
Down
Then up
One more bound
I will survive
The dawn light
Will see me home
The class of 82.
© Tony McNally
I saw you smile
But it didn’t hide the fear in your eyes
Checking our weapons again
No nasty surprise
Thumbs up and you were gone
In the mist the chopper did rise
Will we meet again?
Nobody knows
Then it was my turn
Off to War we go
Both of us young men
A soldier no doubt
This was our moment
In the Chopper I shout
“If I die in a combat Zone
Box me up and send me home”
When the guns fell silent
We met again
Not recognising each other
As bearded skinny old men
Our smiles had gone
A different look in our eyes
No hugs or handshakes
Nervously still staring at the skies
We did our duty
Made it through
Two young old men
The class of 82.
© Tony McNally
The disgustingly beautiful soldiering
The abhorrently peaceful peace
The exhilarating intoxicating Fire fight
The stomach churning smell of the deceased
The loneliness of being back home
The need to be back with your mates
The buzz of being paid to kill
The grin on a dead soldiers face
The guilt of being a survivor
The odd need to do it all again
The faces of men you would die for
The comrades who would never give in
The old man I've become please forgive me
The ones that died still in their teens
The soldiers now smiling in Valhalla
The ones I will see tonight in my dreams
© Tony McNally
WAR……..
Three letters
As a young soldiers
Modern day Gladiators
We coveted
These three letters
Watching Vietnam War films
Clutching a tin of lager
We blurred the cinematic bloodshed
WAR……Its here
Hip Hip Hooray
Willingly we went
More green grist to the mill
Crack open another tinny
We are fucking Supermen
“Burp”
© Tony McNally
It was a matter of millimetres
When I hit the ground
I got a mouthful of sheep shit
As I heard that `crack` sound
It had your name on it
It should have been mine
But I will never forget you
My Geordie mate from the Tyne
You were only eighteen
Forever will you remain
Every year I will come and visit
Have a drink just the same
Il will meet you soon in Valhalla
You will see this old man
Take the piss have a laugh
Like when you beet me up Pen y fan
Here have the last of my brandy
As it soaks in your grave
Il wipe away a tear
Green light on…….bye Dave.
© Tony McNally
I took a bullet in the heart
But I didn't know back then
Shell fragments penetrated my soul
I didn't feel a thing
We were the Heroes
The newspapers said
But I can now feel the bullet
And the ring ringing in my head
They are all still young men
Buried in frozen soil
Forever the real Heroes
Died for freedom
Not foreign oil
So I charge my glass
To drink for them all
We will meet again in Valhalla
Hip Hip Hooray
For the glorious dead
Still walking this mortal coil.
© Tony McNally