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Another To Remember
Sgt. Gene Arden Vance Jr.
To Special Forces he gave his all
For ten years a
Guardsmen
So he had answered the call
He went to make safe our land
But from the mountains of Afganistan
To the mountains
of West Virigina
He will not come home alive again
He was killed in East Afganistan
His daughter has lost her dad
And a wife has
lost her husband
In a fire fight in a foreign land
West Virginia will welcome him home
And comfort his family that`s left alone
Theres
only one small tribute that we can pay
Remember him on this and every Memorial Day
İFaye Sizemore May2002
For
Sgt.Gene Arden Vance Jr. 38 yrs. From Morgantown.W.VA.
19th Special
Forces National Guard KIA Sun.May 19 2002
The Farmers Went To War
A ways out on the old highway..
past where the Little Leaguers play
On the outskirts of town.. thats where you
turn down
an old rutted farm lane..overgrown with weeds
..and no tresspassing signs nailed to the trees
There`s
the old Smith farm with fences broken down
..no cows anymore.. to keep from harm
Only the posts still sound.. pasture`s
gone to seed
Ford truck grown up in weeds ..looking down
on it`s luck
In it`s year had been a good old truck..
Once it got every care..no neglect when it`s owners were here
Looming
large and lonely..the old house standing there at the top of the hill
Broken chimney still rising to the sky..broken window
like a black eye
Some birds nesting in the mailbox..doors with broken locks
The barns and out buildings out back.. missing
boards.. here and there
Didn`t used to be like that before the Smith boys went to war
All but the youngest.. Tom.. and he doesn`t stay
here anymore
The old flag pole Is still there..Pop Smith used to raise the flag
in the morning dew and lower it in evening
time
As his father used to do.. a habit to which he always kept true
Ms. Smith planted poseysNear the base,petunias..
red..white..and blue
A few scraggle there still.. don`t get care anymore
Died of a broken heart Ol` Ms Smith..she did..
when
her boys never came home from the war
After that Ol` Man Smith just slowly sank and Tom..he
drank
Yes,now this farm is owned by the bank
(And this is how it was..........
A war over
across was the cause of this old farm`s loss)
Faye Sizemore Apr2002
Revised March 2004
Memorial
Crosses at attention on a field of green
Wreaths
are laid upon the graves
Quiet mist falls… and out of my pain
I mix my tears with the rain
Oxen plodding where the rice was grown
Past the places where the craters were blown
Monsoon
rains bathe the loss
Somewhere in the delta, a rose, I’ll toss
İFaye Sizemore
1968 or ‘69 |
Secret In The Attic
Leading to the attic , there is a narrow stair
Grandma`s old treasures are stored up there
She has her wedding dress all pearls and lace
Old pictures and trunks are stored in this place
Lots of things she put here because they were still good
The many drawers are full in old dressers
of antique wood
On Sunday, last week we buried our beloved Grandma Anne
To her house in this quiet street she`ll
not be coming again
She lived alone thirty years after Grandpa died
She never married again, Grandpa was her pride
Boxes of pictures,so many more than I could count
They have to be gone through,we can`t throw
them out
Here`s Father`s picture,on the back it says he`s just eleven
He has gone last year, and waits
for Grandma in heaven
Here is a soldiers picture, by the uniform,can you tell the year
He doesn`t look familiar to
me,I wonder why she kept him here
Grandpa was a soldier way back in World War ll
This must be a picture of someone he once knew
What`s that sticking out the back,the frame is falling apart
It`s an old letter and on the back
is drawn a heart
"My dear Anne,Tom told me, before his death in my arms came'
Heavens,look at this letter,it is
signed with Grandpa`s name
"If I make it through this war and if I finally come home
Will you marry me ,and let me
take Tom`s babe as my own"
Why, Tom was my father`s name!,"take Tom`s babe as my own"?
I held in my hands a picture of a
grandfather I`d never known
Never known because he had been killed in the war
All these years his picture has laid in this
drawer
I sent a silent thank you to the grandfather who had come home
He has my love and honor, this
man who claimed us as his own
İFaye Sizemore June2002
A Soldier`s Rose
Rose,do you still sit on the porch swing
And still watch the evenings on the wing
Do you still watch the lights come on at nine
Do you still listen to the night traffic
whine
In the far reaches of my mind
Back where love`s memory does chime
There is a road that does wind
Rose,to a memory lost in time
Of a sad goodbye said slowly
And of promises made to you only
Do you still sit as we did there
Is the smell of jasmine still in the air
It was heaven in the cool evening time
To sit on that swing,your hand in mine
You would be my wife you said
When I returned we two would wed
Rose,watching the fireflies in the grass
We said how quickly time would pass
Rose,say you have not forgotton me
A soldier who went across the sea
To never again return to you anymore
Staying a prisoner of a foreign war
Rose,say you will never forget
The boy who fought with no regret
And asks only one thing now,Heaven knows,
Just to be remembered by a girl named
Rose
İFaye Sizemore July242002
Pilgrimage
The Wall does call it`s choices
with fifty eight thousand voices
From it does come a siren song
Those who hear will come along
It`s song is haunting
and filled with longing
There are those who will hear
and always hold it dear
Shame upon those who forgot
And do remember them not
They are calling to this day
Listen to what the voices say...
'We stood for you..for a moment
come stand along with us.
Never forget our sacrifice
nor
ever betray our trust'
İFaye Sizemore October2002
Anniversary
Twenty years The Wall has been there
In pilgrimages because they care
In sun shine and rain
the people came
In twenty more will it be the same
When this generation is gone
Will the wall of names be alone
Will our brave men be forgotten
Only
to be names carved in stone
We must pass onto others their story
Keep on telling of their glory
Never let the future generations
forget
So that forever they shall be honored yet
İFaye Sizemore June2002
Child`s Play
I don`t want to play war
Not ever again... not no more
I sit alone and remember back then
Pretend my brothers are here again
As a child I would sit
in the dirt
Dressed in my shorts and play shirt
Take my toy soldiers and play some war
My big brothers they showed me more
The neighbor boys,
we played with them
They even had some G.I. Joes so trim
We would draw a line and then have a war
We played
by the rules ,they don`t... anymore
With little stones the enemy soldiers we would bomb
They don`t use little stones
...they use napalm
They grew up... and I seemed to stay like a child
They`d still play war with me once in a while
Brothers
and the neighbor boys, they went to war
Neighbors came home, but brothers won`t anymore
We used sticks for our guns to make the soldiers run
Real rifles was used to make my brothers`s
lives done
Not even G.I.Joe , him so being so great and so trim
Could stop the bullets and big bombs and save them
I don`t want to play war
Not never again...not no more
İFaye Sizemore 2002
Creme` Of The Crop
Ain`t no hero,I`m just Dan
Just a plain soldier man
Doin` what I`m told
Doin` it the best
that I can
Daddy`s just a plain farmer man
A herdsman and a tiller of the land
He taught me to take the
hoe to hand
And just hoe my row as fast as I can
Mama taught me always do what`s right
Well I`ve been called so I`ll go and fight
MamaI know
you have never told me wrong
But it`s so hard to dance to another`s song
Mama and Daddy taught me to pray
And I`ve been talking to God every day
And to me this is
what He seems to say
He`ll watch over those I love while I`m away
So here I am in a foreign land
I`ll spend a year in the jungles here
So very far away from
the farm
And all those that I hold dear
The brothers here have become like my own
I love them just likemy brothers at home
Friendship
has blossomed from seeds sown
And into brotherhood it`s flowered and grown
Ain`t no hero,I`m just Dan
Just a plain soldier man
Doin` what they tell me
Doin` it the
best that I can
İFaye Sizemore July32002
The Soldier And The Flower Child
"Shell shocked",that`s what they said
And then you sent a letter that read
Those words every soldier dreaded to hear
It said "I can`t wait for you,John,dear"
I had put my life on the line in that war
And I wondered what had I been fightin`for
The road back has been years long
It is a long way that I have gone
Way back there on my path
The undaunted demons still laugh
To find my way was not certain
For you had drawn the curtain
Closing the windows of home
Leaving me out here all alone
Alone I couldn`t sense the lovelight
That used to comfort me at night
They told me you weren`t aroun`
Said you`d moved into Flower Town
Finally found my way back to your door
In psychedelic colors sign on it readin`
"Whatcha`
come here for
You don`t live here anymore"
Now I`m still wondering.....
Just what was I fightin` for....
İFaye Sizemore June2002
Red Dress At Midnight
At the tolling of midnight
Gazing out on bright moonlight
I beheld a strange sight
There
was a woman in a dress of red clasped tight
In the arms of a uniformed soldier this night
As I watched they turned and
walked away
I saw them for the moonlight was as bright as day
They stopped by the cemetary pathway
"Good-bye,my darling,I`ll
have to stay"
"No matter,I`ll always love you,"I heard them say
All of a sudden she was alone on the street
Who was
this strange soldier she had come out to meet
Why at midnight did he she greet
Why did they have to be so discreet
Days
later by a friend I was told this story
When I saw her laying flowers in the cemetary
She`s the town`s crazy lady they
all say
Been that way since she lost her fiancee`
At night wearing a dress of red
Because it was his favorite she
said
Every night claiming to her he does come
Impossible because he was killed in Viet Nam
İFaye Sizemore Apr2002
Roses For Jennifer
A birthday tomorrow
Not a happy one
At twenty eight years, a widow
Not fitting in these
days of sorrow
On a mountainside in Pakistan
A refueling plane
A kc-130 crashed
Claiming the life of her
man
A Marine who loved
God,Country,and Corps
Taken from her
To somewhere above
The doorbell rings
There stands a delivery
With his arms full of roses
Roses ,of all things..
"Hope your birthday is grand,
Mrs Mcollum",he said
The card says...
"With all my love,Dan"
This eight months bride
Soon to be mother
Of a son who
Would be her pride
This new widow`s grief
was eased in the relief
Of a bouquet of love
sent by her husband
Tho
he`d been nine days above
Nine days dead...
But ,foresight ordered ahead
She will always treasure
Dan`s beautiful
roses of red..
İFaye Sizemore Apr 2002
For Jennifer Mcollum,widow of Marine Dan Mcollum,Irmo,SC killed in crash
in mountains inKC-130
near Shamsi Airbase in Pakistan,Jan.9,2002
A Walk With Grandfather
Out walking small hand in large hand
Grandpa and little Jim treked the land
Out in the field where the hill starts to crest
Two figures large and small stopped to rest
The small boy looked up and said
"What did you do in the war, Granddad'
The older man hearing this dropped his shield
Remembering things that had never healed
He stood quiet and remembered with wrinkled brow
Suddenly he was transported from the here and
now
The weight of these memories causing him to bow
To give this boy an answer he didn`t know how
He remembered the smoky battles ,the drying blood
The jungle heat,the eternal rain, the slimy
mud
It seemed those things would never end
He still hears the screams of dying men
Friends dead in the blink of an eye
Still even now his soul asks why,why
What was won did not balance what was lost
There isn`t anyone on earth can total the cost
He thought he`d never see again these fields of home
He had been afraid his children would grow
up alone
Looking down at the young innocent boy
The grandfather decided on another ploy
Not
wishing yet to visit the horror of war on him
He said only "Why,I did what a soldier does,Jim"
İFaye Sizemore July52002
Memorial Day
I heard the creaking of the old iron gate
Looking around I saw on old lady
Pushing her walker
slowly ahead of her
And hanging from her walker was a wreath of flowers
She slowly made her way between the rows of
stones
Finally taking the path to the Veterans spot
It took her awhile to arrive where she wanted to be
She
stopped part way down under the flag waving above
Looking tenderly at the stones and silently reading every word
She
stood for a few minutes with her head bowed
I knew she was praying,God willing,she would come back next year
Slowly
and with an effort she removed the wreath from the walker
And just as slowly bent to lay it tenderly upon the graves
With
careful and measured step she made her way back to the gate
Quickly I moved to hold it open for her and as she moved toward
her car
Where her driver was waiting,seemly patient,I remarked
How much easier it would be to have someone else lay
the wreath
While she rested in the car and watched them do the honor for her
She told me her husband had been a soldier
in World War ll
Her two sons were soldiers in Vietnam and her short walk this Memorial Day
Was nothing compared to the
price they each had already paid
İFaye Sizemore May2002
Battle Sounds
In the clearing after the storm came
He looks around to see if all is the same
No craters blown in the ground
Neither are bodies strewn around
It`s not what he has expected to see
He`s not where he thought he`d be
When will this all come to an end
Thirty three years up around the bend
That wasn`t time enough to heal
The lightening removes the seal
Again in the thunder it`s so real
He hears artillery in every peal
The thunder storm now has abated
Taking the sounds he has long hated
For the sounds of dying and of war
Are going to haunt him forevermore
İFaye Sizemore June 2002
I Remember You
It was a long time ago
But faithfully I do go
To the cemetery at the top of the hill
All these years I am drawn there still
My friend, I can only visit your grave
I came home but your all you gave
We went so alive, side by side
And here in death now you bide
I remember your last scene
Engraved in my memory
As a ever waking dream
I still can hear you calling
Though the leaves of autumn
have thirty years been falling
The winter snows of the years
Though heavy as they were
have not hidden my tears
And so it will be in thirty more
I can never forget my friend lost to war
Who died on a distant shore
For Brother, brotherhood was never a chore
İFaye Sizemore
August 18, 2002 |
History Lesson
Dust has now settled
..Where the battles raged
...... History has gone on
............. Recorded it`s bloody page
Old soldiers do sit and still recall
... because they do not forget
........Brothers
who gave their all
Stirring the dust
..... Turning back the page
................ Because they must
İFaye Sizemore May 2002
Holocoust 2002
The fires still burn in memory
In over fifty some springs
The smoke has not drifted away
It
lingers as part of a plan
God will not let us forget
Man`s inhumanity to Man
İFaye Sizemore Apr 2002
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