War Poetry
Due to the recent events in Ukraine, here are some poems that I think are worth reading at this time. Remember that, while many of these poems are more reflective in nature, the topics are war and death, so if that's not what you want to read about, stop here.
I started by picking out some of the older poems about war and its consequences. The first one the first recorded poem about war.
Untitled
Enheduanna, a priestess from Sumer, the ancient land that is now Iraq wrote this
Cerca 2300 BC
You are blood rushing down a mountain,
Spirit of hate, greed and anger,
dominator of heaven and earth!
"Nefarious War," by Li Po
written in 750 AD
men are scattered and smeared over the desert grass,
And the generals have accomplished nothing.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The next three poems are more modern poems that deal with the harsh realities and effects in the middle of war. It is definitely one of the more triggering sections, which is, I think, why it is also very worth reading.
Here, Bullet
by Brian Turner
If a body is what you want,
then here is bone and gristle and flesh.
Here is the clavicle-snapped wish,
the aorta’s opened valves, the leap
thought makes at the synaptic gap.
Here is the adrenaline rush you crave,
that inexorable flight, that insane puncture
into heat and blood. And I dare you to finish
what you’ve started. Because here, Bullet,
here is where I complete the word you bring
hissing through the air, here is where I moan
the barrel’s cold esophagus, triggering
my tongue’s explosives for the rifling I have
inside of me, each twist of the round
spun deeper, because here, Bullet,
here is where the world ends, every time.
Suicide in Trenches
by Siegfried Sassoon
I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.
In winter trenches, cowed and glum
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.
You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you’ll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.
Dulce et Decorum Est
by Wilfred Owen
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 gas-shells dropping softly 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 flound’ring 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.
Notes:
Latin phrase is from the Roman poet Horace: “It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.”
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
These next two poems explore the aftermath of war and the lingering effects on those left behind.
The war will end
by Mahmoud Darwish
The war will end
The leaders will shake hands
The old woman will keep waiting
for her martyred son.
That girl will wait for her beloved husband
and those children will wait
for their heroic father
I don't know who sold our homeland
but I know who paid the price.
The End and the Beginning
by Wisława Szymborska
Translated by Joanna Trzeciak
After every war
someone has to clean up.
Things won’t
straighten themselves up, after all.
Someone has to push the rubble
to the side of the road,
so the corpse-filled wagons
can pass.
Someone has to get mired
in scum and ashes,
sofa springs,
splintered glass,
and bloody rags.
Someone has to drag in a girder
to prop up a wall.
Someone has to glaze a window,
rehang a door.
Photogenic it’s not,
and takes years.
All the cameras have left
for another war.
We’ll need the bridges back,
and new railway stations.
Sleeves will go ragged
from rolling them up.
Someone, broom in hand,
still recalls the way it was.
Someone else listens
and nods with unsevered head.
But already there are those nearby
starting to mill about
who will find it dull.
From out of the bushes
sometimes someone still unearths
rusted-out arguments
and carries them to the garbage pile.
Those who knew
what was going on here
must make way for
those who know little.
And less than little.
And finally as little as nothing.
In the grass that has overgrown
causes and effects,
someone must be stretched out
blade of grass in his mouth
gazing at the clouds.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I feel it would be remiss of me to not include a few poems that speak to the reasons why people do fight. War is horrific, but individuals will fight and die for a cause they believe in and I do not think this is unjustified, nor do I think it should not be lauded. I think passion for a cause is, indeed, something that is very understandable. The second poem, I have had the audacity to edit for current circumstances.
In Flanders Fields
By John McCrae
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
The Soldier
by Rupert Brooke's (1887–1915)
Edit by Carey Griffin
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever [Ukraine]. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom [Ukraine] bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of [Ukraine]'s, breathing [Ukrainian] 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 [Ukraine] given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under [a Ukrainian] heaven.
Note: The original poem uses “England” and related words
---------------------------------------------------------------------
These last three poems discuss the lives of those uninvolved, their worries, fears, guilt, reactions, etc. during times of tragedy (for it is always a tragedy in my opinion). The last of the three is my own poem from a long time ago during a much more minor tragedy (if they can even be compared) but I thought the sentiment was relevant to the moment.
We Lived Happily During the War
By Ilya Kaminsky
And when they bombed other people’s houses, we
protested
but not enough, we opposed them but not
enough. I was
in my bed, around my bed America
was falling: invisible house by invisible house by invisible house.
I took a chair outside and watched the sun.
In the sixth month
of a disastrous reign in the house of money
in the street of money in the city of money in the country of money,
our great country of money, we (forgive us)
lived happily during the war.
Dover Beach
By Matthew Arnold
The sea is calm tonight.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
Portrait of a Tragedy
By Carey Griffin
He wakes up again
to the news of children
gunned down by an unknown
man.
He cleans up like normal
and breakfast is the same cold
you might hear in a voice
today as any day.
Before leaving, he fails to remember where
he dropped his keys last night,
pats himself down in a panic: his sides,
his back pockets, his heart,
but there on table, they linger
by yesterday’s paper, splattered
with gray pictures and words
that almost have no meaning.
There’s a photo of a dead man
whose face could be anyone’s.
Next door, his neighbors
begin a war and he hears
their infant wailing.
He hurries out to the car,
turns the radio on then off again
and drums his fingers against the wheel.
His drive is a dream, arriving
with a feeling, not a memory.
On the sidewalk, he notices
an elementary girl trailing behind
her mother’s phone
and brushes past them
down this path into his routine.
Work will consume him,
he trusts; he prays
it’s only a bad beginning
a day that feels clouded
though no clouds cross
the everyday blue,
another morning where nothing’s changed,
except suddenly he doesn’t know himself.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Finally, this particular blog, of my two, is the one meant to encourage others to write. I encourage the same right now to you - write down your thoughts about the war or war in general. Here you have examples of various angles you might use to approach your thoughts:
General thoughts on war or violence
Imagine yourself in the position of a soldier and what their feelings might be in a specific war experience
Take a news article you've seen where something happened and write about it
What are the after effects of war? Who has been affected and how?
Is there anything to admire, not necessarily about war, but about those that fight or the cause for which they fight? Why or why not? Is there a story or scene that shows this?
How do you feel in a world at war? How does it affect your day or relationships with others?
I firmly believe that writing poetry or prose is one of the best ways to give therapy to yourself.
Even if you only have five minutes, try spilling words from your mind unfiltered on a page for that time and I think it will surprise you what comes out.
