GHOST OF ANZAC
‘...the birds are chirping in the clear morning air and buzzing about from leaf to leaf, placidly going about its work, is a large bee – to think of what might be makes me weep, for fighting is continuing in all its fury...’ 1
Imagine-
You’re beside them
In that silent watery dawn
Just drifting in the stillness
For a lifeboat to that shore
You sense the future haunting
That this ghostly beach will bed
But you’re scared to think your fear too loud
The Turks might hear your head
Now as God prepares for morning,
A shell screams overhead
And spills you in the pieces
For a dead swim to the dead
So you scramble ‘sand splashed’ scarlet2
But pause to see two fall
So you drag one bloodied brother
As the other numbs your thoughts
Up the ‘sandy slopes’3 now
You’ve dragged your brother dead
And wish that Johnny’s bullets
Had taken you instead
And in that screaming Hell hole
Death parties hard all day
With the vomit of the hangover
Spewed thick across the bay
The bright abyss of sunrise
Brings water washing red
As you thank God for the bullet
That now takes you in the head
You’ve surrendered up your future
For a world you’d never claim
And left behind your mother
Who cried herself insane
100 years past WW1
Your ghosts now ask me why
We still accept agendas
That command our best to die?
Aleta Baskerville 2016
‘One wouldn't mind dying to serve such men as these [The soldiers].
You can imagine nothing finer.’ 4 The Reverend George Green (2nd
Lighthorse from Queensland serving at Gallipoli)
(Interpretation: The sentiment expressed here is that Reverend George Green expresses the view that the dying soldiers are worth dying for, yet the value of those and the causes calling these men to sacrifice is questionable.
1 Ellis Silas diary, 1914-1916 - Page 51(sourced from
3.Ellis Silas, 28 April 1915 (sourced from http://www.gallipoli.gov.au/an-artist-at-the-landing/diary-of- ellis-silas.php)
4.The Reverend George Green 2nd Lighthorse Chaplain from Queensland serving at Gallipoli