The following post is all poems pertaining to war and soldiers. The first piece is possibly the most well-read “war” poem in the English language.
Wilfred Owen was a Welsh poet (only 5 poems published during his life), fought in the first World War, and was friends with Siegfried Sassoon (another war poet of the era). He was killed in action at the Battle of Sambre one week before WW1 ended. (It has been said, he would’ve been the reigning poet of his generation had he lived– and not T.S. Eliot– because his verse was more powerful.) Many of Owen’s poems are harsh, shocking portraits of the war, contrasting other poets like Rupert Brooke, an English poet who wrote idealistic war sonnets during the same era. Brooke saw combat only once, while taking part in the Antwerp Expedition. He later died in the Mediterranean from an infected mosquito bite. The first poem here, is Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est” (1917) and the second is Brooke’s “The Soldier” (1914).
Dulce et Decorum Est
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.
GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!– An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
* Dulce et decorum est… mori: Latin for “sweet and fitting it is to die for one’s country.”
The Soldier
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England’s, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
The next poem is not a soldier’s account nor a blind patriotic ode for war. It’s a piece by Gwendolyn Brooks, a serious talent from America. Featured elsewhere on this blog. I believe this one was published in 1944/45.
looking
You have no word for soldiers to enjoy
The feel of, as an apple, and to chew
With masculine satisfaction. Not “good-by!”
“Come back!” or “careful!” Look, and let him go.
“Good-by!” is brutal, and “come back!” the raw
Insistence of an idle desperation
Since could he favor he would favor now.
He will be “careful!” if he has permission.
Looking is better. At the dissolution
Grab greatly with the eye, crush in a steel
Of study— Even that is vain. Expression,
The touch or look or word, will little avail.
The brawniest will not beat back the storm
Nor the heaviest haul your little boy from harm.
Adrian Mitchell was an English poet, worked for nuclear disarmament, wrote anti-war satire, love poems, and many other works. He said, “Most people ignore most poetry because most poetry ignores most people,” and worked, through his writing, to curb that trend. In this 1965 recording he reads a piece about Vietnam. (Watch for Allen Ginsberg in the audience).
Charles Bukowski is here again. Nothing on women or drinking. This one was published (2003) in one of the gazillion posthumous volumes of his works, so I’m not sure on the date it was written. He died in 1994, so it is not impossible it was written at the time of Desert Storm.
the con job
the ground war began today
at dawn
in a desert land
far from here.
the U.S. ground troops were
largely
made up of
Blacks, Mexicans and poor
whites
most of whom had joined
the military
because it was the only job
they could find.
the ground war began today
at dawn
in a desert land
far from here
and the Blacks, Mexicans
and poor whites
were sent there
to fight and win
as on tv
and on the radio
the fat white rich newscasters
first told us all about
it
and then the fat rich white
analysts
told us
why
again
and again
and again
on almost every
tv and radio station
almost every minute
day and night
because
the Blacks, Mexicans
and poor whites
were sent there
to fight and win
at dawn
in a desert land
far enough away from
here.
