The Royal Newfoundland Regiment
Into the fray they proudly went
To the Great War, WW I
At Vimy Ridge, Ypres and the Somme.
In places like Flanders Fields you know
White wooden crosses still sadly show
Where the fallen lay, row on row,
These men of valour we did not know.
On blood-soaked soil some soldiers once tread
Serving a noble cause instead,
"For God and Country", so they said
War's eulogy written for the dead.

With ballots of hate an evil genius had won,
The Summer of '39 the world stood stunned
While the light lives yet, memories abound,
Ravaged earth, death's stench, evil's crown
Still, WWII had only just begun.
Hitler's Third Reich, with its military might
Jackboot, goose-step, a formidable sight,
Versailles Treaty reputedly now dead
Replaced by warmongering generals instead.
Not long before Nazi horrors unfold
Men of honour all brave and bold
Death on desert sands endured,
And in trenches dug deep, freezing cold.

Victorious Canadians at Scheldt Estuary
Defending freedom, defeating tyranny
Slaughtered at Dieppe repeatedly,
On D-Day they stormed the beaches at Normandy.
At Caen, the 3rd Division, 2nd Armoured Brigade
Undaunted, with their lives many had paid
They proved their mettle seemingly unafraid
These unsung heroes all history made.

So, let us not their sacrifice forget
Nor shame their painful, bloody death,
But show a nation's deepest respect
For I shall not forget.

GUYANESE LAMENT
Ubiquitous night of dimensionless darkness
trespassing on horizons of hope
with arrogant stupidity in a delirium
of determination of self
Decades three and eight years drowned
in stream of incoherent voices
Destiny determined by illusions of grandeur
in the persistence of memory.

Scorched countenance
Its soul a caricature of former self
walking blindly still
on dishevelled paths of indiscretion
Hatemongers' worst nightmare
revealing itself in exodus of free spirit
cornucopia of talent, ambition's wanderlust.

Nihilism, fear and despair
Distorted sounds in corridors of power
Identity in preserves of rainbow hues
like teardrop touching tropical treetop
in a carpet of conspicuous configuration
Diverse richness of earth
like silent spirit of Makonaima
rests undisturbed beneath the surface.

Atlantic trade winds, free of molecules
destructive to body, gently soothe
equatorial heat of day
Serenity, lost in perpetuity by abrasive voices
and summers of discontent
To live, to dream of dying vestiges
To die in foolhardy contemplation
of what might have been.

May 26, 2004