COLLEEN’S 2020 WEEKLY #TANKA TUESDAY #POETRY CHALLENGE NO. 197, #SPECIFICFORM: TANKA

WELCOME TO TANKA TUESDAY!

It’s the fifth Tuesday of the month! This is our chance to work with a specific syllabic poetry form. So, take this opportunity to learn more about the particular form. You can use any subject, theme, or words to convey your message.

This week’s form is:

TANKA

Compassion

Photo by Cadeau Maestro on Pexels.com

Look straight at me please
Don’t ignore me I am here
I may be older
But I have life in me yet
Have you any compassion?

This is part of Colleen’s Tuesday Tanka Challenge.

The Red, the White and the Purple

I do not want to upset anyone but as we draw near to Rememberance Day I just wanted to share my feelings on the poppies we wear.

There are more than one, these days, the red to remember the dead, the white for peace. To remember the conscientious objector. During WW1 and WW2 many thought these men were cowards. I do feel they were brave enough to stand up for their beliefs. Many were tried and shot for not taking up arms. Many spent the war as medics and stretcher bearers unarmed or in the mines.

What ever you think, the wars killed them irrespective of their principles. I respect the Red and the White.

The Red and the White.

Why

Argue

Both were brave

Each had their own

Principles to up

Hold. Neither less than bold.

One would carry a weapon

The other a stretcher, no gun

Both men died for their own held beliefs

They were both lost and that loss brought much grief.

———

Then there is the Purple Poppy in remembrance of all the animals who died in service during conflicts.

They pulled the gun carriages until they dropped

They carried messages and they got shot.

They search out the unexploded mines

They save lives a thousand times.

Spare a thought for the horse, pigeon, donkey dog and many more

Remember them, they all help us in times of war.

Happy Father’s Sunday.

To Father’s everywhere, two poems I wrote in 2015.

Acrostic, Father.

Photo from Here

First and foremost he is constantly there

Always ready to support you, comfort and to care

Tough when needed and loving too

Hoping always the best for you

Everlasting patience where you are concerned!

Rooting in corner praising you highly for the accolades you’ve earned.

💜💜💜

New Father

His hands are too big

Like his heart and the love he has to give .
His fear is tangible but he holds the baby
His own, his son. A leader of men …maybe.
This life, these eyes dependent on him
My boy my lad his heart begins to sing.

💜💜💜

Finally I bring this one out every year.

A tribute to my Father 1905 – 1976

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He was a quiet man, he was a helpful caring man.

Handsome in his youth a dashing man,a fighter for rights.

A union man, a fighting for the under dog man, a “I’ll do it if I can man” .

He met my Mum, a wooing man, a handsome flashing eyed Irishman.

A black haired almost wild man, a stand up for what I am man.

A good man to trust your life to and my Mum did,

He was an out in the open man. What see is what you get man, nothing hid.

He worked hard he was a family man. A sturdy, bring home the wages man,

A giver, comforter, a lover man. A home maker man some one to carry the can man.

A there until the end man.

He was a stern man, when you had done wrong, though he was a quick to praise man.

A happy to teach you a lessen in a song man. A teacher man,sometimes a preacher man

An always there when it counted man. He was a father of the bride man, and he handed all his daughters away.

He was the man who supported his sons when they became the married men.

He was a support man, and adviser man the lover of lilies of the valley man.

He was reunited with my Mum man when they saw us all gone.

He was a plain man to the end man, not a flourish and bouquet,

Nor a black magic man,an honest to the end man.

He was a deaf man, but he heard what was important man!

At the end, a blind man, in stature a tiny man in truth a giant man.

A truly missed man , a wish you where here man.

He is a gone but not a forgotten man.

Image of the Lilies

Happy Father’s Sunday All.

7.30 am July 1st 1916 Battle of the Somme

Today  is  the  100yr  anniversary  of  the Battle  of  the Somme. Read  here Please

At 7.30am   I sat in my  kitchen in  silence  and  observed the  two minute  silence  in  reverence  for  all  the English,  French   and  German  soldiers  who  died in  not only  that  battle   but  in  that  war…To  end  all  wars , but  also  the those  who  died  in  the  next  war  and  the  next  and  so on! From  all the  countries  in  the  world.

Death, Desolation, Destruction!

Men taught hate men taught to wait til death comes to claim them 

Stink, Stench Smell

Bodies sinking in the mud tell their own story.

Is this man’s best glory.

Drench, Damp Dripping

Their guns are filthy,bullets all spent . They all gave up hoping.

Boom,Bang Whistle, 

They no longer hear they no longer fear the hair on their necks no longer bristle.

Dead all dead and left to rot .

This was the war to end all wars ……….. How soon we all forgot

Nothing has changed in the theater of war they are battling still, on the fringe they know the score.

Shout , Scream Squeal they will still advance they have lost the ability to feel.

No longer human their souls are worn out and why are they out there? Can you answer beyond any doubt.

Fight for your sight fight freedom for all ..as if that day will ever dawn wait to hear the cock call!

Death, Desolation, Destruction!

Men taught hate men taught to wait til death comes to claim them.

On the first day of the 141-day campaign, July 1 1916, was and still is the deadliest day in the history of the British Army. Almost 20,000 British Empire soldiers lost their lives in just 24 hours.

Image 1

Image 2

Poem written  by  me

Madness by  the world

LEST WE FORGET!

LEST WE FORGET / REMEMBRANCE: Day 11 Nano Poblano

 

Lest we forget

Lest we forget? a war  to end all wars

Yet everywhere  you look there  are more  and more!

We preach  peace, we say no more

Still somewhere, on every  continent,  someone is at war!

Neighbour  against neighbour  brothers and sisters  too

Always it is  the innocents  who do the  suffering.  What are we to do?

 

They are erecting giant Poppies to commemorate the start of  the first world war.

It started  in a foreign land, a duke  was shot  the result we know and  more.

The first world war started in 1914  on the 28th of July

Sadly looking round the  world , we have learned  nothing . Can you tell me why?

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Remembrance 

Old soldiers

Today was a special day a date carved in my mind. Today it is time for us to remember the soldiers who died for all mankind.

Walking up to town today my poppy on show just a little reminder, my reverence to show. The high street was busy full of people to and fro and traffic rushing through as motorists on their journeys go.

Today it will be different, today is not the norm, though busy roads and people about their business go. Outside the Town Hall and in the Market Place  groups of people gather some smile and wave the older men embrace.

Now the clock hands approach the eleventh hour and through our town surges gratefulness you can feel it’s power. For every shopper stops and stands and every coffee shop and bar is silent now because the clock bell tolls the hour.

The tills in the supermarkets and every shop are silent and with stationary shoppers filled  and even the mighty traffic is in it journey is stilled. In silence I stood and watched this strangest but most merited tribute and as ever I shed a tear as the old men took a salute.

Lest we forget

Two minutes and it was over all trace of silence gone, the shops are once more busy the stilled traffic now moves on. I meet my friend and as in to Costa we go I say a silent thank you to all those brave men and women who I do not know . They fought , some gave their lives for me so I could be free, in Flanders , Turbrook and Tripoli, on the Somme , Leningrad, Pearl Harbour, Goose Green, Helmand Province, Iraq and Iran and many, many other places defended by a brave woman or a man.

I make no apology I will be politically in-correct for so many have offered up their lives and my life they still effect!
I shall not forget them and neither should you for without them you would not be free to do most of the things you do!They fought against what ever foe that threatened our freedom to take and they often had to give the biggest sacrifice anyone  has to make.

So on this 11th day of this 11th month in 14th year of this millennium I stood at 11o’clock with many others to salute our soldiers, sailors and our airmen and many, many others. For they have given their all for us my sisters and my brothers.We owe them a THANK YOU.

THANK YOU

Musical Theme: Grandmother Fire

Run from the fiery dance

by willowdot21

OMG

The red, the yellow, God they frighten me,

the heat, the fear is all that I can see.

Run, run, run for your live’s

get your husbands, children, grab your wives.

Pound, pound, stomp, stomp the sound of people running for their lives!

Go, go this is your only chance

to escape the fiery dance.

No time for saving your possessions,

no time to find the cat

he will be gone to safety you can be sure of that.

Go, go don’t look back ,

duck, duck hear those windows crack.

How did this happen what did we do….

nothing , nothing , is that really true.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fire Arthur Brown

Julie Driscoll Brian Auger & Trinity – Wheels On Fire (1968)

Firework Katy Perry!

Fire on Bayalon Sineade OConnor

Johnny Cash   Ring of Fire

Light my fire  The Doors

Walk through the fire.   Peter Gabriel

Fire starter The Prodogy

Alquimia Tribal – Fire Tribal Fusion – Swords

Cirque Fire Dance – Srikanta Barefoot of Cirque du Soleil

Mark H fire dance demo; deathstars, poi, staff, and double staff

The human implications of Australian forest fires

Cities Burning

by willowdot21

London’s Burning

Stomp stomp there’s panic on the streets.

They are tearing through the alleys and taunting the police.

They are burning shops and peoples homes.

No matter how hard people have worked and made their businesses by working fingers to the bone.

Families frightened out of their minds,  running  across the roof tops escaping

flames, shocked and lost having left all they own behind.

Smash Smash they are breaking lots of glass

stealing trainers, clothes and handbags this is not the poor under class.

This is not political they have no high ideals.

They are not the poor underdogs who can’t afford their meals.

If you can carry a Blackberry phone and a fashionable track suit and designer trainers you own,

your on another track., you are in another zone.

Stamp stamp the sound of running feet they are all carrying 75 inch screens and DVD recorders by the score.

“Take what you can when you can” is the gang call of the suedo poor.

Flames, flames police cars have been torched

whole shops and all their contents have all been thoroughly scorched!

People without their livelihoods, people without their homes

all because these feral louts threw fire bombs and stones.

They rant and rave and scream and bleat that they are fighting for a cause ,

they have no hope they say, no jobs and no one for them cares.

There are the jobs and there are the chances we all get just the same

it just some of us make our own  way and don’t take benefits just for gain.

A good man lost his youngest son whilst on a vigilantes line,

he only wanted to call a holt  to the rioters forward drive.

Just because he stood for right ,

these ferals having fun, drove through his line killing three,

his youngest son was one.

If ever we needed a hero, a strong leader to come along,

we need them now ! We need the police to stand up and use measures hard and strong,

for what these evil robbing thieves are doing, is all wrong.

Feral Looters

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tasmania devastated by bushfires

NaPoWriMo Day 18, Respect

http://en.blog.files.wordpress.com/

Day 18 NaPoWriMo : Today’s prompt is  to write a poem that begins and ends with the same word. Not easy so here goes!

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Respect

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http://nimbinwave.com/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Respect the boys demand,

Bling  dripping from neck and hand.

Acting like gangsters  pushing everyone around

Out your mouth you make Jamaican sound.

Big man, you think you are

Driving round in your  customed car.

Running with the gang hanging with the girls

Your prospect disapearing like swine before pearls.

Harassing the nervous and the older folk

Littering the place with needles, skank and  coke.

Never mind the children playing by the swings

They don’t know about needle sticks, aids and things

Peddling drugs and using kids on bikes as runners

http://das.okstate.edu/

Making rules for gangs, becoming knifers and gunners!

Starting young and never growing old

Ending up dead in a pool of blood on the pavement cold.

Mother grieving, says he was a good son

She don’t know the half of what he’s done.

Black hearse carries the boy, all his friends stand and reflect

On his coffin a single wreath spells the one word, Respect.

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http://www.napowrimo.net/

A quiet man

A quiet man

He was a quiet man, he was a helpful caring man. Handsome in his youth a dashing man,a fighter for rights. A union man, a fighting for the under dog man, a “I’ll do it if I can man” .

He met my Mum, a wooing man, a handsome flashing eyed Irishman. A black haired almost wild man, a stand up for what I am man. A good man to trust your life to and my Mum did, he was an out in the open man what see is what you get man nothing  hid.

He worked hard he was a family man. A sturdy, bring home the wages man, a giver, comforter a lover man. A home maker man some one to carry the can man, a there until the end man.

He was a stern man, when you had done wrong, though he was a quick to praise man , happy to teach you a lessen in a song man. A teacher man,sometimes a preacher man an always there when it counted man.

He was a father of the bride man, and he handed all his daughters away, he was the man who supported his sons when they became the married men. He was a support man, and adviser man the lover of lilies of the valley man. He was reunited with my Mum man when they saw us all gone. He was a plain man to the end man, not a flourish and bouquet, blackmagic man,an honest to the end man.

He was a deaf man, but he heard what was important man! At the end, a blind man, in stature a tiny man in truth a giant man. A truly missed man , a wish you where here man. He is a gone but not a forgotten man.