Welcome to my page... Enjoy!
Graham E. McLoughlin
The Wraith With The Four Letter Name
In darkest night there comes a wraith to knock upon your door,
clad in tattered, twisted memories of a time you lived before.
It demands you open up that door and expose a wounded soul,
to live once more that nightmare time that nothing can console.
That wraith that others cannot see, controls your tortured mind.
Its evil garb of times of war, by your demons… well designed.
It wraps you with that dreaded shroud ‘til scarce your breath will come
‘til tight your heart , so wet your sweat, until your screams succumb.
Then finally clad in such mawkish garb it leaves you in dawn’s light,
a light that brings no comfort from those memories…No respite.
You live your day’s life clothed like that wraith, tattered, twisted, bare.
To wait in fear for coming nights, full knowing who’ll be there.
This wraith that comes now has a name…Four letters… Christened fear.
It’s not only yours, it knows many more, and it won’t just visit here.
It knows your mates , those ones who’ve suffered, and others that still do.
And though it feels like yours alone, it haunts many more than you.
A single twig is not hard to break but if you bind a few together,
A bond like this will confuse the wraith, those garments will cease to tether
PTSD, that dark night wraith, must never own your soul.
Discard that shroud of darker times and let this new time make you whole.
© Graham McLoughlin 2020
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
ANZAC DAY 2020
As the empty streets begin to wake upon this our hallowed day.
All the medals lie unpolished, as still in the drawer they lay.
The bagpipes sit deflated and the flags remain… still furled.
As the country isolates itself from a frightened, cowering world.
There a small group of those chosen will now feed the eternal flame.
And bow their heads in solitude, a collective reverence to proclaim.
Will others rise as early to remember our country’s dead?
Will they bother to say “lest we forget”… or just stay there in bed?
Will these token reverent gatherings appease those who were our shields?
Will that bugle blown so softly still be heard in Flanders fields?
As we practice social distancing, even neighbours to ignore.
Will we forget the ANZAC legacy and all those who’ve gone before?
Will the ones who learned the lessons of those heroes from the past,
Miss out this year and soon forget… just to put our ANZACS last
Instead will there be hoarding… panic buying… civil war.
Or will we still remember precedent, set by that revered corps.
We should live the life of freedom that those warriors bestowed
But will a bugle blown so softly still be heard on Burma Road
It is clearly not the sort of world that was left to us by those,
The ones who faced privation that only few can suppose.
If our Diggers had done what we do today, and hid themselves away,
instead of charging Beersheba, the tide of war to sway.
Would there be a world that can still survive, and maintain a sense of pride?
Without the ANZAC’s heritage, and the day o’er which they preside.
I will stand at dawn upon this day and I hope that others will.
So perhaps our bugle blown softly will still be heard on Lone Pine Hill.
​
© Graham E Mcloughlin 2020
The Pilot
​
An emu plume and slouch hat adorn his head no more
His horse's nicker now replaced by radial engine roar.
His trusty Lithgow rifle gone... a trigger handle in its place.
His saddle now a seat of tin, in a tiny cramped in space.
But ride he does... Above the fray, where only Gods once stood.
He soars on clouds on this new mount... of linen, wires and wood.
Up where the air is chill and clean, the smell of death abated.
His thoughts undisturbed by screams of men... sounds he always hated.
Those thoughts fly back to his outback home, where he first had learnt to ride.
And the musters he had ridden in… with his brothers by his side.
That brings a tear of sorrow, as he remembers Joe and Tom.
How both now lie in death's dark grip, in fields upon the Somme.
He had left them both, to learn to fly, in the brand new Flying Corp.
Never realising, when he got back, he would see his kin no more.
So now he flies above them both, like an angel up on high.
To watch o’er his country’s brothers, so no others have to die.
His war-horse now an Avro, spitting death at those below.
Winged retribution for his brother's both... the enemy to bestow.
So he kicks the rudder over and shoves the stick away.
Through the spinning prop, lines up the trench, his vengeance there to spray.
The Lewis on the cowling begins its mortal chatter.
The tracers draw a sombre line, enemy’s lives to shatter.
Too late he sees the fire returned…By the Maxim on the ground.
He feels the breath of red hot lead...Feels his wounded mount come 'round.
Hot oil, that engine lifeblood, now covers goggles, face and screen
His diving steed disobeying rein… ground rushes up unseen.
Hot oil now mixed with his own blood, from shattered hip and shoulder.
All three sons, who answered country’s call, shall grow not one day older.
No more will those three lads muster steers, amongst gidgee trees and sand.
Instead their bleached bones will lie as one… In the mud of no man’s land.
​
© Graham McLoughlin 2021
FOOTNOTE:
This poem was written to commemorate 100 years of the RAAF , an institution I joined as a 15 year old boy from country NSW.
Those first 7 years of my working life shaped who I am today, along with many of my brothers-in-arms who also took this career pathway.
The RAAF was formed in 1921 from the remnant members of the Royal Flying Corp,. Many of the initial Australian members of the corp were drawn from the Australian Light Horse regiments, seconded, without their mounts to the infantry battalions on the battlefields of France.
The members of the Light Horse were predominantly country lads... Fit, free thinking and adaptable, making them ideal pilot trainee material. Their initial training was in machines not a great deal more advanced than the Wright Fllyer, the aircraft that had started man's adventure into the air just 12 short years before.
Even Aircraft like the Avro 504 K featured in this poem were quite slow, unreliable and certainly no match for the Faster, more manoeuvrable and better armed Fokker Triplanes. Avros were mostly utilised in a ground attack and troop observation role .