There were days and nights and days and nights
in the slopped mulch of the propped trenches. They carved their names in the thick struts,
smoked and smoked, kicked the blueflies up
in buzzing fogs from the stench.
Back home there were Winnies and Marys and Jeans
packing ammunition, working machines, washing the chipped crockery,
wishing the calloused hands back to mutely ring the mug-stripes. The washed shirts
of the gone men haunt the lines. (And it was easy to see loss
in everything then, but nothing defined
the dearth of men quite like those creased and empty arms did,
waving, waving to empty skies,
to empty wives.)
* * * * * * * * * *
Even in death, they keep their lines,
intact battalions
drawing their drastic tally in the earth.
Just 4km from Bullingen
(Normandy, Warsaw, Bergen-Belsen) –
they might as well be on the moon.
They have thrown down the gauntlets of their grey bodies.
Wet with rain and rank with the sweet-
sick smell of cordite, they mould in the damp,
wait for their bones
to be picked clean.
* * * * * * * *
They fell on fields, they fell on beaches.
moved correctly through the earth’s bowels,
fattened the cod and the bleached haddock.
Come November, the cenotaphs froth with blood-
red poppies, the way that soldiers’ cold grey mouths
once frothed red with blood.
Ah, how their boots drummed, once, and their guns!
Then blasted off, then requisitioned –
and the dead men masticated by gums of mud,
spit out, stubbed out,
sucked groundward.
A contest entry
- Bullingen 4Km ~ war image contest by ariosto.
1000 points, ended October 26, 2007, 10 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Please tell me what you think
Comments
1 - 8 of 8
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spit out, stubbed out,
sucked groundward.
one of many passages I like
This is a wonderful poem...The use of differeent forms within it works well.
You extrapolate without ever losing the connection to the image.
really a memorable work
thanks for entering!
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This reeks with the reality of war - it over-powers the lunacy of honour in this death, and brings it down to brass tacks. A superb write indeed.
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chilling
the empty arms of shirts on the line will haunt me now. Beautifully realised comment on the futility of war, the primal need of the earth for death, and the cost to those who wait for the outcome, while trying to keep life going. I saw a still from a 1918 movie "Prisoners of War" yesterday, which struck me for the way the lines of men formed a strange pattern
as seen from above - and today you paint the same picture, in words. Synchronicity - shiver down the spine - you're VERY good.
. Rewarded 8
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Honestly. Wow. I love coming back to read your poems over and over again. Do you know why? Because I'm never disappointed. Ever. And this is no exception. This is just amazing and I'm at loss for words. Best of luck in the contest. They'd have to be mad really not to award you the first place.
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What carries the most in these words for me is the eternal futility of it, and how easily it becomes forgotten. The atrocity of what was done hasn't paled, hasn't lessened, but the world loses track, daily, of the reasons and the lead-in. There is much I could say to damn myself .. on the subject, as mine tends not to be a popular view.
I have not lost my horror, and I suspect I never will, but sadly I see the necessity of those deaths in a way I wish I did not. I suspect that more than anything, appalls me.
I love the subtle but strong repetition in some of the lines. They create an inner rhythm and take the point being conveyed to a more potent execution, like nursery rhymes, built to impart what is being said to the memory as mnemonics.
No matter how many times it is said, no matter how many images are shown ..and grow old it needs to be said again and again because that poppy we wear when the air grows cold becomes more a flower than blood day by day, and the earth is too ready to bleed.
Wonderful take on the image ....
and best of luck.
. Rewarded 8
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I don't know quite what to say to this, except that it makes me feel sad. *Geck* I'm just repeating what someone else says here, but it is haunting! Really haunting!!!
Hugs, Dari xxx
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This leaves me with such a sad feeling. Wonderful depictions. I enjoyed the read
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Powerful, haunting and stunning. Well done you.
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