War Poetry

[Zod]

Big fan of war poets from WWI and WWII.

Siegfried Sassoon

“The rank stench of those bodies haunts me still”

The rank stench of those bodies haunts me still

And I remember things I'd best forget.

For now we've marched to a green, trenchless land

Twelve miles from battering guns: along the grass

Brown lines of tents are hives for snoring men;

Wide, radiant water sways the floating sky

Below dark, shivering trees. And living-clean

Comes back with thoughts of home and hours of sleep.

To-night I smell the battle; miles away

Gun-thunder leaps and thuds along the ridge;

The spouting shells dig pits in fields of death,

And wounded men, are moaning in the woods.

If any friend be there whom I have loved,

God speed him safe to England with a gash.

It's sundown in the camp; some youngster laughs,

Lifting his mug and drinking health to all

Who come unscathed from that unpitying waste:

(Terror and ruin lurk behind his gaze.)

Another sits with tranquil, musing face,

Puffing bis pipe and dreaming of the girl

Whose last scrawled letter lies upon his knee.

The sunlight falls, low-ruddy from the west,

Upon their heads. Last week they might have died

And now they stretch their limbs in tired content.

One says 'The bloody Bosche has got the knock;

'And soon they'll crumple up and chuck their games.

'We've got the beggars on the run at last!'

Then I remembered someone that I'd seen

Dead in a squalid, miserable ditch,

Heedless of toiling feet that trod him down.

He was a Prussian with a decent face,

Young, fresh, and pleasant, so 1 dare to say.

No doubt he loathed the war and longed for peace,

And cursed our souls because we'd killed bis friends.

One night he yawned along a haIf-dug trench

Midnight; and then the British guns began

With heavy shrapnel bursting low, and 'hows'

Whistling to cut the wire with blinding din.

He didn't move; the digging still went on;

Men stooped and shovelled; someone gave a grunt,

And moaned and died with agony in the sludge.

Then the long hiss of shells lifted and stopped.

He stared into the gloom; a rocket curved,

And rifles rattled angrily on the left

Down by the wood, and there was noise of bombs.

Then the damned English loomed in scrambling haste

Out of the dark and struggled through the wire,

And there were shouts and eurses; someone screamed

And men began to blunder down the trench

Without their rifles. It was time to go:

He grabbed his coat; stood up, gulping some bread;

Then clutched his head and fell.

I found him there

In the gray morning when the place was held.

His face was in the mud; one arm flung out

As when he crumpled up; his sturdy legs

Were bent beneath bis trunk; heels to the skye.

[Zod]

On Seeing a Piece of Our Heavy Artillery Brought into Action

Wilfred Owen

Be slowly lifted up, thou long black arm,

Great Gun towering towards Heaven, about to curse;

Sway steep against them, and for years rehearse

Huge imprecations like a blasting charm!

Reach at that Arrogance which needs thy harm,

And beat it down before its sins grow worse.

Spend our resentment, cannon, -- yea, disburse

Our gold in shapes of flame, our breaths in storm.

Yet, for men's sakes whom thy vast malison

Must wither innocent of enmity,

Be not withdrawn, dark arm, thy spoilure done,

Safe to the bosom of our prosperity.

But when thy spell be cast complete and whole,

May God curse thee, and cut thee from our soul!

[TheSaint]

I have an M 16

your head appears from the grass

gray matter pinkens the greenery

a haiku

[Kevin Greene]

I fart in your general direction

Signed, the French.

[Happy Panther]

Wilfred owen is my favorite poet ever

"Gas Gas Quick Boys!"

Then something about flopping around like a fish

War sucks