The darkness crumbles away 
It is the same old druid Time as ever, 
Only a live thing leaps my hand, 
A queer sardonic rat, 
As I pull the parapet's poppy
To stick behind my ear. 
Droll rat, they would shoot you if they knew 
Your cosmopolitan sympathies, 
Now you have touched this English hand 
You will do the same to a German
Soon, no doubt, if it be your pleasure 
To cross the sleeping green between. 
It seems you inwardly grin as you pass 
Strong eyes, fine limbs, haughty athletes, 
Less chanced than you for life,
Bonds to the whims of murder, 
Sprawled in the bowels of the earth, 
The torn fields of France. 
What do you see in our eyes 
At the shrieking iron and flame
Hurled through still heavens? 
What quaver -what heart aghast? 
Poppies whose roots are in men's veins 
Drop, and are ever dropping; 
But mine in my ear is safe,
Just a little white with the dust. 


by Isaac Rosenberg 

Remembrance Sunday

On a cold November Sunday morn, an old man sits a while
Looking though old photographs, he can’t help but smile
They’re all there, all the boys, with hair cut short and neat
Uniforms of khaki, strong black boots upon their feet.
They met as strangers but soon became like brothers to the end
Smiling at the camera, there could be no truer friends.
They all took the Queen’s shilling, went off to fight the hun,
Soon learnt the pain of loss once the fighting had begun.
So many never made it home, lost on foreign shores
Many more were injured and would be the same no more.
The old man’s eyes mist with tears as he remembers every face
Each of his fallen brothers and the killing which took place
He proudly dons his beret, his blazer and his tie
For today he will remember the ones who fell and died.
On his chest there is a poppy, a blaze of scarlet on the blue
He steps out into the cold, he has a duty he must do
Once at the cenotaph he stands amongst the ranks
Of those who marched to war and those who manned the tanks,
He bows his head in reverence, as the last post begins to play
And he wonders what will happen at the ending of his days
Will anyone remember? Will anybody care?
About the lads so far from home whose life was ended there?
I wish that I could tell him, that he should fear not
For this soldier and his brothers will NEVER be forgot
We owe a debt of gratitude that we can never pay
And this country WILL remember them, on each Remembrance day.

Maria Cassee

That is beautiful Veggie..

It's from here lal, the Remembrance poems section. It is very poignant

http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/

That poem is beautiful Veggie 

A letter to my paper today

Remember Them

I was a young lad when they took me away.
Able and willing to join up that day,
A spring in my step and pride in my heart
Sound in the knowledge I'd be doing my part.

Away from my home but at ease with new friends,
Funny how youthful exuberance ends,
When faced with aggressors intent on your death,
Only content when you draw your last breath.

I was a young lad when I saw my first kill,
The moment surreal, everything still,
A faraway 'crack' was the first that I heard,
The startled ascent of a noisy blackbird

I turned to the pal upon whom I relied,
The life once inside me fell silent and died,
My senses assaulted, a scene crimson red,
His eyes so expressive told me coldly: 'I'm dead'

I'm now an old man - what I've seen haunts within
I close my eyes tightly, I'm back stood with him,
My friend of whose ghost I will never be free
I live with the thought that it could have been me.

My young life was altered by scars borne of war,
The image of slaughter has left my mind raw,
Fighting for country, they called us 'the few',
I hope you remember we did this for you.

I also love this one by Rupert Brookes

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.