a veil of scarlet drops
slowly traced the contours
of a faded photograph
in the rigor mortis grip
of an American boy
with a German name,
dead on a French battlefield.
The soft strains of "Lili Marlene",
riffed by as Marlene Dietrich
replied to Vera Lynn’s
"White Cliffs of Dover",
while the distant thunder of guns
marked the sanguinary advance
of allied armies, come to free Europe
from Hitler’s Iron Fist.
Paris wasn’t burning,
as the Fuehrer’s armies
reeled back in defeat,
and the Russians
stormed into Berlin.
Like World War I, this war proved again
that the the war to end all wars
may come only with the Apocalypse.
What did you think?
Comments
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A haunting reminder that the wars go on and senseless battles still are fought and soldiers die for squares of land and borderlines, though now the borders are ill defined territory inside the mind and sometimes the battlefield is way to close to home.
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I read of the Apocalypse and tremble, but somehow the war to end all wars occurs with each death and photograph splattered in scarlet drops. The color is always sanguine as are hopes lying in the dust.
I was born just after WWII. My grandfather was a veteran and decorated soldier of WWI. He fought in France and could easily have been the soldier in your first stanza, and I might never have been. He was also a poet. As I grew up, I only knew the stout saw filer with wild gray hair, a toothless, storytelling man from the plains of So. Dakota who was the patriarch of his family. He called me Pet, and I can't think of him without the aromatic pungency of peppermint and tobacco. Years later, I came to read a journal entry that told why he was decorated by a French general, and I came to understand why, although my grandparents had 7 children, they slept in separate beds. [As if that weren't enough reason
] He suffered from night terrors and it was for my grandmother's protection.
The poem is haunting, for the voices and thunder still fill the battlefields. You write beautifully, JD. Beautifully.
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Mille fois merci ...
and I wonder why you aren't writing a poem about your grandfather, since it seems to me from what you've said that you have everything you need there to do it with. It sounds to me as though you should be doing that now.
I can understand the night terrors since I have nightmares nightly, and have had all my life, or as far back as I can remember. Not much fun, I assure you.
Thanks for the kind words. I hope everything works out for you, and soon.
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OMG This is the real face of war. soft spoken in sadness for the death of youth amidst so much life, worthy or not. Beautifully traced from some aspect of memory. A prophetic ending? ?
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A very powerfully written poem. From beginning to end a very gripping piece. Keep the ink flowing and good luck!
~Donna~
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"...an American boy
with a German name,
dead on a French battlefield."
The irony of your lines just struck me, we are a society based mostly on immigration, Those young men from many different cultures, shoulder to shoulder, fighting a world war. Also, it reminds me of a quote, I have seen the enemy and he is us or something to that effect.
Your opening verse gripped this reader and the last one shook me.
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I forgot to mention ...
there was a comic strip called Pogo. The line you refer to is from the comic strip:
We have seen the enemy and he is us (or something very similar.)
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A fitting tribute to those times and places. Polish pilots flying in RAF Fighters. Lili Marlene a favourite with the Desert Rats in North Africa, it was just a sad soldiers song. Jewish units fighting. It was truly a world war.
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Yes, my sentiments exactly. Great words that make you know once and for all that the Apocalypse is only way out of this mess.
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"Like World War I, this war proved again
that the the war to end all wars
will come only with the Apocalypse."
Powerful words..
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