free-verse40 lines
Jam - A Hymn Of Hate
by Edward DysonWhat is meant by active service
'Ere where sin is leakin' loose,
'N' the oldest 'and's as nervis
As a dog-bedevilled goose,
Has bin writ be every poet
What can rhyme it worth a dam,
But the 'orror as we know it
Is jist jam, jam, Jam!
Oh, the 'ymn of 'ate we owe it,
Stodgy, splodgy, seepy, soaky, sanguinary jam!
There's the 'fearful roar iv battle,'
What gets underneath yer 'at,
Mooin' like a million cattle
Each as big as Ararat;
There's the red field green 'n' slippy
(And I'm cleaner where I am),
But the thing that's got me nippy
It is jam, jam, Jam!
Druv us sour it has, 'n' dippy,
Sticky, sicky, slimy, sloppy, stummick-strafin' jam!
Of the mud that's in the trenches
Writers make a solemn fuss;
For the vermin 'n' the stenches
Little ladies pity us;
But the yearn that's honest dinkum,
'N' the prayer what ain't a sham
Is that Fritz may bust 'n' sink 'em
Ships of jam, jam, Jam!
For we bolt 'em, chew 'em, drink 'em,
Million billion bar'ls of beastly, cloyin' clammy jam!
We are sorry-sick of peaches,
'N' we're full right up of plum,
'N' innards fairly screeches
When the tins of apple come.
Back of Blighty piled in cases,
Jist as close as they can cram,
Fillin' all the open spaces,
Is the 'jam, jam, Jam!
Oh, the woe the soldiers face is,
Monday, Sunday, ruddy, muddy, boundless bogs of jam.