The Day of Infamy

The Day of Infamy

“Yesterday, December seventh nineteen and forty-one…”

As they lay sleeping to the perils overhead,

American fought its demons

Over which way our hearts were led.

Then the bombers came a-crashing

Into our battleships and planes…

Our Hawaiian Pearl Harbor

Now had death upon the mains.

It is war. It is war.

The giant could sleep no more.

We’re under attack.

No turning back.

It is war. It is war.

Many times we’ve been the aggressor.

Sometimes we’ve been unaware,

But to see us fight our fiercest,

Attack us in our lair.

The whole country was frenzied up.

Nothing would be spared…

Payback’s a bitch, you best watch out,

Truman’s Little Boy would in time be aired…

It is war. It is war.

The giant would sleep no more.

With fiercest attack,

No holding back…

It is war. It is war.

© Copyright, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw, 2000.

All rights reserved.

Two Fresh Eggs

Two Fresh Eggs

For (James Bruce) J.B. “Bucky” Collier, A Friend

“Two fresh eggs. Any way you like ‘em, soldier.”

Flying over that peaceful ocean

Hiding depth storms

To sweep us away

Forever.

“Two fresh eggs. Any way you like ‘em, soldier.”

Even prisoners bound for execution

Are given a last meal…

Would we be gone

Forever?

“Two fresh eggs. Any way you like ‘em, soldier.”

So this is our treat

Before we go to meet

Our Maker

Forever.

“Two fresh eggs. Any way you like ‘em, soldier.”

Flying to the South Pacific

On a bomber

Borne for hell

Forever.

“Two fresh eggs. Any way you like ‘em, soldier.”

Crack my eggs…

Aborted embryo chick…thrown up…

Is it an omen

Forever?

“Two fresh eggs. Any way you like ‘em, soldier.”

The very few remain…

The Alive…but the fear still fresh…

I will remember that flight

Forever.

© Copyright, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw, 2000.

All rights reserved.

War Bride

War Bride

For Grandma Ena May McFarlane Massie Bridges

Fifty some years later, she still can awake

In cold sweat and shakes,

A scream strangled in her throat…

Don’t give your position away:

The Germans still bomb London,

Leaving Coventry for dead…

Rations, long lines and fear;

The Empire held in chains,

Destroyed.

But to be young in war,

The men all killed…or maimed…

Quick! Send the children to the countryside!

And the bombs drop.

Britain stands alone.

So weary.

Blood, sweat, toil, and tears…

And muffled shrieks in the night,

Bellies sometimes grumbling,

Mostly empty…

Never give up!

Bagpipes, must sound the bagpipes!

Nightmares, oh the nightmares…

A song plays and she weeps softly

About “tomorrow when the world is free.”

Over fifty years and an ocean,

A lifetime away,

She still can awake in tears.

© Copyright, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw, 2000.

All rights reserved.

Ironton’s Memorial Day Parade

Ironton’s Memorial Day Parade

To remember to honor and to celebrate,

To decorate the graves of those who fought…

Ironton parades through most of the middle of town—

Bands, floats, horses, clowns…

But most of all, people—

People of all types and ages.

Used to be said, if you were able,

You marched.

Whole classes of school children marched.

Men alongside the streets took off their hats,

And everyone put a hand to heart.

I remember the hours of preparation:

With chicken wire and tissue on trucks,

The band practices and marches,

Or, even Brownies getting scout cheers and songs right…

To ride in a squad car, a fire truck or an Army-Navy Duck…

Just to be in The Parade.

Now people come from everywhere to see our parade,

Our Parade…longest lasting…and proud.

May the graves be decorated,

The flag flown free;

May the flowers thrown on the River

Say thank you for liberty…

And may Ironton ever be able

To march for memory.

© Copyright, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw, 2000.

All rights reserved.

Those Orange Poppies

Those Orange Poppies

I remember the old men standing in front of Kresges

Selling small paper poppies…

Small orange flowers on a wire

That we hooked onto ourselves with pride—

‘Though some hooked them on to show they’d paid their buck,

But me, with a mix bittersweet, mostly sad—

Were always the skies gray those days,

Threatening rain?

Or, was it my heart would burst

Seeing those men whose smiles…

Smiles that never quite hid

Deeply wounded,

Woefully sad eyes?

© Copyright, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw, 2000.

All rights reserved.

She Never Married

She Never Married

For Vivian Taylor, A Friend and Landlady

 (*loosely based on her story)

“Sweet lover, be safe as you fly from this place

To your missions in the Pacific.

I will await your return for then do we wed

After Guam, Midway, and ‘Unspecific.’”

Many letters she wrote, many pictures she sent,

Care packages when she was able…

While meanwhile she worked as a nurse and an aide

Though times were very unstable.

Sometimes he would write when he had the time

For combat, of time, was commanding.

Assuring him forever she would be true

Even though he was not so demanding.

This gave them both hope and a measure of joy

In the face of great fearful unknowing

Of where he would be, or if he would be

A part of a blood crop then sowing.

A year thereabout after he flew

Away from his love at the airport,

Two soldiers in blue came to her home

With the most regrettable report.

She took it quite well until they were gone

Then she collapsed on the sunroom divan,

Crying, “Sweet lover, be safe as you fly from this place

Until I join you in your mission in heaven.”

© Copyright, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw, 2000.

All rights reserved.

Flashback to Mekong: The War in Viet Nam

Flashback to Mekong: The War in Viet Nam

For Dustin Massie, Daniel Massie, David Massie,

Wayne Massie, and James Delong, My Cousins Who

All served willingly and honorably

And still the evil fought through lives

In minds and bodies all tattered

With memories of a limb or an ear

Or a child blown up and scattered.

Flashback to the now of the time when we hid

From the nightmare of still living

With a best friend’s right arm,

All that was left, of the life he was giving…

For a country who hated us…

In a country who hated us…

No reprieve.

Nineteen years old and proud of this land

Of our birth, our family, and teaching,

Many were drafted, so they couldn’t say no,

Regardless of the masses loud screeching.

War heroes, yeah right, stoned out of our minds

Blinding to terrors more real

Than any horror king knows,

And in our souls they live with us still…

For a country who hated us…

In a country who hated us…

No reprieve.

© Copyright, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw, 2000.

All rights reserved.

And Still the Channel to Cross

And Still the Channel to Cross

Looking around,

Nerves stretched taut,

The winds and waters churning.

All are pale.

None will return.

Deep terror in us burning.

Normandy,

Damn those cliffs,

A beach changed to bloody swampland…

Though thousands die

To win that beach

From Hell’s elitist command.

© Copyright, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw, 2000.

All rights reserved.

A Mother Cries for Her Fallen Son

A Mother Cries for Her Fallen Son

For Mrs. Goldcamp, Our Neighbor

Never will the guns be so silent

As the silence after death

Of those fallen to fight “the cause juste.”

Is a common life so shorn

Or youth so plentiful

To be offered up this way

By the wrathful God

Who has known not childbirth

Nor the enfolding of life

Into one’s arms, one’s heart, one’s womb?

In righting wrongs,

Did my son, my own,

Die suffering?

Did he fear the end when it came?

Did he know my love

Would outlast the grave…

Was this just cause worth this blood sacrifice

Offered to the God of war…

That tears my heart always?

Ah, my son, brave man and true,

Willing soldier, mother’s pride,

Well fought against madmen gone berserk

Setting the world on fire again.

Sleep now, my son,

For the guns are now dreadfully silent

But still at ready for

Another mother’s son.

© Copyright, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw, 2000.

All rights reserved.

During World War I

During World War I

For Grandpa Earl McKinley Bradshaw

A limb for a limb, a trunk for a trunk,

Broken bodies under broken trees

Across a land of holes and shells…

And still the artillery fired,

Bombs igniting an inferno Dante never knew—

The nightmare that was.

More men died from tree fall than gunfire,

Branches of weapons old yet new

Still brought the same end.

Dead is dead regardless of how…

And the remaining few do live?

Foreign borne to soil blood knows new yet old;

Wash it now in sanguined mud,

The creosote of millennia burst aflame—

The hatred, the fear, and the passion…

Friends fought beside now gone…

A man deemed enemy wasted,

Human parts flayed bare are seen…

But not…

Can such deep wounds of land or breast

Ever heal again?

© Copyright, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw, 2000.

All rights reserved.

The Korean War

The Korean War

For John Lewis Bradshaw, My Father

That blue square with the white letters

When sited target makes

Upon helmet or upon uniform,

Coppery, salty red lakes.

It’s not our war, but we are there

To save a peninsula from Red Peril,

We carry the war, to our dismay,

Like fish caught in a barrel.

A human wave poured out upon

The Father against the Son…

Divide them up and let them have

Demilitarized zone, not won…

Then let our soldiers coming out

Find a Red Cross no friend…

Not only give blood to pay blood

But also their own coins they spend.

© Copyright, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw, 2000.

All rights reserved.

BEAVER (to the tune of Fever)

I wrote these crazy lyrics a couple years ago as part of a Monty Python group I host elsewhere....

BEAVER (to the tune of Fever)

Never know how much I chew, yeah,
Never know how deep to bite...
When I put my teeth into wood
I'm a beaver who wants to do it right.

'Cause I'm a beaver biting in wood;
Beaver with a nasty bite;
Beaver -- give you warning!
Beaver even in the night.

Ev’rybody wants this beaver
That is something you all know
Beaver isn’t such a new thing
Beaver started long ago

'Cause I'm a beaver biting in wood;
Beaver with a nasty bite;
Beaver -- give you warning!
Beaver even in the night.


Fun brightens my playtime--
Wood for me to bite!!
Making dams all around me
And you know I chew with all my might.

'Cause I'm a beaver biting in wood;
Beaver with a nasty bite;
Beaver -- give you warning!
Beaver even in the night.

Lumber may have its own jack.
Teeth fell them the same
For when I sink my teeth into wood
You'll be calling me by my name!

'Cause I'm a beaver biting in wood;
Beaver with a nasty bite;
Beaver -- give you warning!
Beaver even in the night.

Now you’ve listened to my story
Here’s the point that I have made
Wood was made for mouth of Beaver
For beavers make it in the shade.

'Cause I'm a beaver biting in wood;
Beaver with a nasty bite;
Beaver -- give you warning!
Beaver even in the night.

What's the use of biting fern
What's the use of biting fern
What's the use of biting fern

(C) 2005, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw.

A Moment to Honor: My Tribute for Armistice/Veteran's Day

A Moment to Honor: My Tribute for Armistice/Veteran's Day

written on Nov 11, 2005

So many of my kinfolk have been military folk...and some still are. My grandfather (Army) fought in both WWI and WWII...even fighting under Patton... My dad (Marine) was in Korea, and his only brother (Navy) was in Viet Nam. The list goes on. All my kinfolk, to my knowledge, who fought were combat vets...many having lost parts of their bodies and/or having lingering health and other problems due to that combat experience.

On the other side of the world, my hubby was Malaysian Royal Army, Sarawak Rangers.

We have an Admiral, a General, a nuclear sub Commander, even nurses and other medical folk from our family represented...male and female... many age groups.

Those too ill, too old, disabled, etc. who could not go stayed and did fulltime support of troups...always. Always.

The tears and heartache... the fear and worry... the pride and joy in having our loved ones home again... the commitment to PEACE! No more wars!!! is strong. So strong.

I am anti-militarism, but never, ever, ever am I nor will I ever be anti-military. Our people have given so much for us ... and will continue to do so. We need protection ... not empire but protection ... there is difference, as you all know. And, they ... our sons, our daughters, our cousins, our neighbors, our people ... even our adopted people who are now embraced in our bosom ... need our support and respect.

Orange poppies, white crosses, old parrot riffles and caissons...

I will remember. I will love. I will hold sacred their sacrifices and the sacrifices of all who have fallen... on all sides. Their blood still sings out from the ground. Their blood...my blood...our blood... we are all connected.

With love and bittersweet honor,
Daphne Bradshaw

(C) 11 November 2005, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw.

In Memory -- 9/11 and beyond

In Memory -- 9/11 and beyond

written on Sep 11, 2006

It was a vicious attack and a terrible loss for our whole world. I remember that day as if in a bad trip. I, and so many people around our world, lost friends, family, acquaintances....

For well over a week, my family did not know if some relatives survived or not in the Pentagon. (They did, but still cannot discuss anything....) And, also, we live just seconds or less airtime from where the one plane went down in PA. I had even heard the "boom boom" and smelled the fuel and smoke.

Then more and more lives were and are lost as the Hate continues....

Wars, terror strikes of many kinds from all sides.....

We humans must learn peace. We must. Or, the alternative is just too horrid for thought.

If I could have one wish, I'd wish for us humans to learn to wage peace...
to live and breath and have our being in peace... within ourselves, with each other, and with/in our world/universe.

Peace, my loved ones. May you have peace... real peace.

some further sad reflections

It would be long overdue for the pain and agony of the tragedies of September 11, 2001 to have at least healed considerably, but that is not going to be allowed by those powers that be who need to keep dredging the memories up for various agendas. Nor can those who suffered and do suffer the most rest and begin the really deep healing while there are so many questions left unanswered... and more questions continually are brought up... questions that truly demand answers and accounting for. I don't see this happening either... at least not any time soon.

And with the never-ending war on terror still going on and on, will our world ever find a place for peace and healing? I certainly hope so, but I am not holding my breath just yet.

And yet, I still dream of a time when humankind will finally say Enough! to war and then learn to wage peace. "You may say that I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one..." (Lennon, "Imagine")

And, sometimes dreams are not just all we have... sometimes it is the seed to grow....

May we grow peace.

(C) 11 September 2006, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw.

“Macam Tiae Lembu!”

“Macam Tiae Lembu!”
(Malay for “Sounds Like a Cow Shitting!”)
For My Husband Avalon Ajang Ledong—
Royal Malaysian Army, Sarawak Rangers

Army training can be a chore;
In boot camp, abuse is piled on more.
You can train both days and nights
And don’t you worry about your rights…
For you have none.

Drill sergeant will bark if you are wrong.
Sometimes he’ll make you bark along.
You’ll not be left to be long idled.
You’ll find to what you’re entitled…
If you live long.

Marching here, marching there;
You’ll go marching everywhere.
You’ll go marching in the rain.
You’ll be marching while insane.
You’ll go marching up a hill.
Oh, you’ll like the marching drill.

When marching sergeant says you stop,
Don’t you let your feet ker-plop.
Just one POP he wants to hear
Or he’ll shout straight in your ear…
“Macam tiae lembu!”

© Copyright, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw, 2000.
All rights reserved.

Now Silent

Now Silent

Stories oft heard, stories oft told,
Stories how often I said had grown old…
Now silent.
It was such a bother to listen
That one hundredth time more…missin’…
Now silent.

But, I still had plenty of time—
Could tell it myself on a dime…
Now silent.
Little details here and there
Seemed as common as the air…
Now silent.

The empty chair haunts the room;
The stories must somehow resume…
Now silent.
Never knew how silent silent could be…
When I had the chance why didn’t I see?
Now silent.

© Copyright, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw, 2000.
All rights reserved.

Hard Facts Harder Faced

Hard Facts Harder Faced

Who said our soldiers could not be psychos?
Who said we always are saints?
Where is it written we do the right thing
And never show evil or taint?

War is hell, lest we forget it,
And crimes of war even much more…
Can we train a human to kill, not to feel,
Without evil allowed in that door?

Rape is a tool and an agent of war.
So is massacre, torture, mayhem.
Even a good man can snap to a monster
And live only to slay ‘em.

None of us are guiltless, much to our pain,
But we are trapped in this way,
If ever we forget the humanity of victims
From Coshocton to Mai Lai.

© Copyright, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw, 2000.
All rights reserved.

Who Determines Human?

Who Determines Human?

What makes difference too very different
To be considered human?
Does one particular type of person
Have only that special numen?

Does the phrase “not like us”
Have to equal “deserve to die?”
Can someone very different
Still basically be like you or I?

Many wars have been fought,
Many millions be killed,
These questions stay unanswered
And our hatreds remain unstilled.

© Copyright, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw, 2000.
All rights reserved.

The Sand Flea Funeral

The Sand Flea Funeral

Welcome to Parris Island,
Some news skills you will command.
That even the Devil left this place—
Said he needed a cooler space.

So let me tell you what’s the story.
You do what I say, you morning glory.
If I decide to say you stand,
Don’t you dare move a hand.

If a sand flea bites your face,
Soldier, don’t you me disgrace.
If you cannot let him pass—
Slap him, pansy, I’ll have your ass!

For that Sand Flea is a Marine Corps bug—
Kill it, and you’re just a slimy slug.
Full Marine Corps burial you will give.
So, I strongly advise you: Let the bug live.

© Copyright, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw, 2000.
All rights reserved.

Never Forget: War Is Hell

Never Forget: War Is Hell
With that joystick of computerized toys,
You destroy the enemy most foul—
From your safe distance.
But, your unaffectedness cloys…
Deep grumblings, gurgling in the bowel—
Older veterans’ sentence.

What your safe distance doesn’t show,
You think everything’s just fine
Except you might be bored.
The misery you don’t know
Could get you without much sign
Until you have been gored.

© Copyright, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw, 2000.
All rights reserved.