CAPTAIN LALOR

CAPTAIN LALOR

Captain Lalor,
Haven’t you lost your way?
what are you doing here,
four hundred yards
from the peak of Chunuk Bair?

Peter Lalor's sword by your side,
your grandfather's pride;
what are you doing here
four hundred yards
from the peak of Chunuk Bair?
the 26th April, 1915, far from
your farm in Victoria, so green?


Captain Lalor,
haven't you lost your way?
what are you doing here?
your eyes filming,
your fingers unlacing
from the handle
of Peter Lalor’s sword,
so carefully balanced and restored,
your spent cartridges all around,
your four mates lying,
without a sound,
Captain Lalor,
what are you doing here?
four hundred yardsfrom the peak of Chunuk Bair?

From the book 'The Bastard Who Squashed the Grapes in Me Bag' 1991, by Denis Kevans.

THEY'RE OURS

THEY'RE OURS


My uncle was a soldier in the battlefields of France,
His mates were blown to pieces in a hundred yard advance,

When caught between the trenches, and the shells were lobbing round,
They'd roll a smoke, and listen, they'd say as they ducked down ...

Don't worry, old mate, they're ours,
Don't worry, they'd laugh, they're ours,
As the shells were lobbing round,
They would say as they ducked down...
Don't worry, old mate, they're ours.

At Pozieres, my grandfather, put wounded on his back,
And staggered, in a foxtrot, wobbling down the duckboard track,
As they lumped their mates along, trying desperately for time,
This is what they sang when the shells commenced to whine...

Don't worry, old mate, they're ours,
Don't worry, they'd laugh, they're ours,
As the shells commenced to whine,
Trying desperately for time
Don't worry, old mate, they're ours.

My Uncle wore a tin hat, and the earth around him shook,
Playin' euchre as the stukas bombed and strafed 'em at Tobruk,
As the dealer shuffled slowly, and they heard the big bombs bang,
They'd listen, laugh a little, then you'd hear that joker's twang ...

Don't worry, old mate, they're ours,
Don't worry, they'd laugh, they're ours,
When they heard the big bombs bang,
You would hear that joker's twang ...
Don't worry, old mate, they're ours.

A friend of ours was captured at the Fall of Singapore,
They waded in the mud and slush beside that hungry shore,
Then, working in the jungle, allied planes'd soon be coming,
They'd drop a load of bombs on them, you'd hear the prisoners humming...

Don't worry, old mate, they're ours,
Don't worry, they'd laugh, they're ours,
When the allied planes were coming,
You would hear the prisoners humming ...
Don't worry, old mate, they're ours.

All round my land, Australia, are the eyes and ears of war,
Installed inside our country by America, that's for sure,
There's North-West Cape, Nurrungar, and the Pine Gap Complex, too,
With the first strike trigger ready, mate, how does it seem to you?

Don't worry, old mate, they're ours,
Don't worry, they'd laugh, they're ours,
With H-bombs primed to go,
Ask Bob Hawke, but does he know?
Don't worry, old mate, they're ours.

Words & Music by Denis KevansFrom the book 'The Bastard Who Squashed the Grapes in Me Bag' 1991, by Denis Kevans.

THE ENEMY

THE ENEMY

He said the only good enemy was a dead one.
He, the Sandhursted, drilled and over-drilled,
Military ack-ack-ademied, red-striped man
With the moustache.


But who was his enemy?
Was he quite sure?



He ordered khaki-coated flesh to breast the hail of iron,
He ordered massed charges against unbroken wire,
He ordered frontal attacks across sticky mud four feet deep
He ordered that his orders should be carried out,
He ordered that if any man retire in dis-order
He should be shot,
He ordered that a man should fight until he was killed.

He said: "We are fighting a war, remember,
You and me and the lot of us.
We are fighting a war."


He said: "When we have killed
More of them than us, we will
Tally and total the fallen,
And then we will know we have won."

They tallied and total the fallen,
And they found that he had killed three times
As many of us as of them.


It was just plain Arithmetic.
A school boy could have told you.



Well, who was his enemy?
Was he quite sure?

(from The Great Prawn War and Other Poems,1982, Denis Kevans,
website http://www.deniskevans.net

GALLIPOLI, GALLIPOLI

GALLIPOLI, GALLIPOLI

Gallipoli, Gallipoli, it's on the kiddies' lips,
Gallipoli, Gallipoli, the lovely battleships.
The flags of Empire flutter in the sky,
The tooters toot, and all the hooters hoot,
The bronzed colonials march away to die.

To shoot an enemy they're told to shoot.
Many have swapped a swag for this kitbag;
The sun is sinking, colour-patches blend
And melt together, like a chequered flag,
That turns blood-red, all bloody red at evening's end.

Gallipoli, Gallipoli, you'll hear the kiddies sing,
Gallipoli, Gallipoli, for country, God and King.

The bloom of youth lies shattered on this field,
Thick scrub drips with the resins of dying men,
Green flies glitter where the scalp has peeled,
All the King's medals for the boys again.
Calf and collar bones, white as porcelain,
Stick out of stinking curtains of meat,
And, full in the sunlight, a pulsing brain
Still throbs with the passion of the battle's heat.

Attention, Spring! wash out these battle tears,
The pain and courage goes in a dirty song,
I can hear colonials singing it down the years,
They’ll fight our wars from Cape town to Saigon;
Stand easy, Summer! you have done your part,

The orchard's growing greener than the sea,
And to ease the Anzac mother's heart,
We've planted gum trees without any fee.

Gallipoli, Gallipoli, you've often heard’em say,
Gallipoli, Gallipoli, Australia's glory day.

They gathered up these hats and bags and guns,
They shipped them home across the boiling sea,
They let the Anzac's sons, and their sons' sons
See only what they wanted them to see.
They didn't want the pain to be displayed,
The anger or the loss, they scoured the mud
And filth from relics, holy-water sprayed,
They scrubbed off every drop of tell-tale blood.

They built a war-house up here in the hills,
In quiet and peace the people come and go,
None of the weapons scalds or cuts or kills,
None of the mines are ticking for a blow.
They tell us why we fought, for what we died,

They tell us when to cheer, and when to cry,
They order us to wear their lies with pride,
And then they teach us quicker ways to die.

Gallipoli, Gallipoli, itís on the kiddies' lips,
Gallipoli, Gallipoli, the lovely battleships.
I know a man survived this holocaust,
On Thursdays, when the crowds in Martin Place
Gape at the ritual, and the drummer
Drums a base, he was surprised
As if by shells, as he walked past,
And stumbled at the sound of the sudden drum,
On his sleeve he wiped red whiskers
From his lungs, two hives of pain
From the whiff of gas he got, and then
He sucked breath in, like a crack
In tidal rocks, coughed
Harsh, and sharp, and loud,
Like a rifle shot, staggered
And nearly fell, while somebody nearby laughed.
Me, I don't need glory memorials for war,
Like dreams, this man's
My living, suffering cenotaph.

And where are the diggers' voices, anyway?
They're squashed between the gilded
Official bray, and the scholar's "concise"
History. But there's a legend that may suffice,
They say that the scented halls
Of the war-house in Canberra, when the moon
Is bright and low, are filled
With a fierce shrieking, like a drunks' carouse,
Of shell-shocked diggers' screaming:
"No! Vote no! Vote no!"

Gallipoli, Gallipoli, you've often heard 'em say,
Gallipoli, Gallipoli, Australia's glory day.

The flags of Empire flutter in the sky,
The tooters toot, and all the hooters hoot
The bronzed colonials march away to die,
To shoot an enemy they're told to shoot.
Many have swapped a swag for this kitbag;
The sun is sinking, colour-patches blend
And melt together, like a chequered flag,
That turns blood-red, all bloody red, at evening's end.

Gallipoli, Gallipoli, it's on the kiddiesí lips
Gallipoli, Gallipoli, the lovely battleships.

Gallipoli, Gallipoli, youíll hear the kiddies sing,
Gallipoli, Gallipoli, for country, God and King.

'The Great Prawn War and Other Poems' 1982by Denis Kevans.