Choosing a theme for an anthology of Australian poetry
in my final year at uni was not an easy task. Colleagues
suggested a variety of themes, from Australian women poets,
and feminist issues, to propaganda poems, protest poetry,
bush ballads, and so on. The list went on and on.
I finally decided on an anthology based on anti-war Australian
poetry. I felt that we needed new ways of thinking to cope
with the nuclear age. I felt strongly that writers with
their concern for the human condition and their special skills
with language, could enable us to imagine the horrific
reality of nuclear arms and nerve us to build an alternative
future.

One of the poems that I included in my anthology was -
"Homecoming," by Bruce Dawe. To me it represented one of the
best poems that I have read anywhere, about war. And, although
the poem deals with the various stages in the return of the
dead, specifically from Vietnam, it could be in general, from
any modern war. It is a lament for the futility of war
expressed by Bruce Dawe in the detail of the Vietnam War.
Bruce Dawe in this poem, does not accuse or blame, it is
simply an awe-inspiring statement of anguish.

Dawe's poetry has been said by some critics to "convey the
suburbs." It does convey the suburbs, not merely in its
incidents and locale but in its tone. The men who serve in
the armies and are brought home in their black bags are the
children of the suburbs, and the values they learn produce
the wars but they also create the rituals that assuage
their pain.

Dawe conveys simultaneously the pain of our existence and the hope
that makes it endurable.

Perhaps another relevance of ANZAC Day could be not only
our reverance for those who died but being faced with the question
Will there be any one left to bring home, after a Nuclear War?

Were we ever to prosecute a war with nuclear weapons...well ?

There'd be no winners, losers, or anybody left to rebuild or occupy territory. Our water, crops, domestic animals, agriculture, everything that we've become accustomed to, would be affected.

What would remain of our army, would only be used to 'marshall' (similar to that of sheep) what's left of the population to areas, where some suitable sustanence may be found, that may be determined fit for human consumption...

I believe ANZAC Day would cease to matter. In it's place we'd more likely celebrate an occasion, where someone found a new source of fresh water. Free of nuclear contamination.

There'd be no RSL, probably no Government as we know it ? Humankind would be at best, tenuous. Our Church's would become havens for those without minimal accommodation, or food. A place where the 'affected' would receive some succour, before they died of radiation poisoning.

I don't believe the 'powers' fully appreciate the horrific sequel for those who were 'unfortunate' enough to survive, an all out nuclear war.

Thank you LEXI for your most thoughtfully written piece.

For the Fallen

Laurence Binyon

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,

mourns for her dead across the sea.

Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,

Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal

Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,

There is music in the midst of desolation

And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,

Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.

They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;

They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;

They sit no more at familiar tables of home;

They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;

They sleep beyond the foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,

Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,

To the innermost heart of their own land they are known.

As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,

Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;

As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,

To the end, to the end, they remain.

On Anzac Day when we remember the fallen and honour all who have worn a uniform for Australia or her allies,
please seek out a Vietnam veteran or from recent conflicts and say "Thank you mate!"

From verse I have collected.

On the New England highway north of Newcastle a memorial to the fallen in Vietnam can be found.
At night sadly some true filth can be found there.
I am from the era, my age and birth day came out of the barrel.
I tried so very hard to get in, while others did the opposite.
I failed, one eye weaker, no other test ever failed me?
Mates went, some never returned, some did, but not as the person that went.
Not so long ago one, a mate who served in the regular army there, lived along side me.
He never fully came back,and it may be agent orange that has given him cancer.
I once saw a musical group on a kids TV show,told a local radio announcer we would see big things from them.
We did, Red Gum was their name, and just weeks after a song like a poem only 19 came out.
I stop, every time, at that memorial.
Not to celebrate but to remember.
And to wounder ,at the night actions of the filth,and wounder why a place of remembrance can be so miss used.

Dear Belly,

I often wonder the same thing about people
who desegrate someone's grave. Why?
They tell me that it takes all sorts.
I still wonder - why? The only conclusion
that can be reached is - these people are not
in full control of their faculties they've
mentally ill - and they
need help.

Dear Lexi,

Insanity or mental illness is sometimes illusive in definition. What is accepted in one society can be labeled mental illness in another. Both the czars and the communists put dissenters in mental institutions. If one believes in the essential rightness of one's society a dissenter is obviously mentally ill. Under the Nazis respectable members of society desecrated graves on orders. The desecrator of graves may be conforming to the standards of another society. My stepson worked for the Australian government in tracking down and restoring the remains of Aborigines from various museums and other institutions to the Aboriginal people which could claim title to those remains. Those who took those remains were not mentally ill by the standards of their time or our time, but they desecrated burial places.