One Thousand Men

One hundred years past, a peace treaty signed,

One thousand men gone, but not out of mind,

One thousand men dead, they never came back,

My father, my brother, my son, my Jack.

The newspaper columns, thousands of names,

Killed, wounded, and gassed, and missing and maimed.

The Sarre family sadly lost five sons to fight,

Some families lost all, unknown was their plight.

Some buried in graves, but others not known,

Remembered with love, on memorial stone.

We all knew each other, we all knew the men,

Our losses compounded again and again.

No friends, no uncles, no husbands, no son,

No money, no food, and this is called “won”?

No tradesmen, no labourers, no farmers, no corn,

No fathers for children ne’er to be born.

Our precious island lost son after son

So much sacrifice but –

no person has won.

That wasn’t the war that ended all wars,

For 20 years later we suffered once more.