502 War poems

You should have heard the soldiers’ feet wounding the swirls that the accordion waltz left on the pavement like a mower’s swath once the parade had passed you should have kissed the soldiers’ feet pulled out of their boots and licked the ankles and climbed as far as the khaki seven and a half millimeters thick would allow you should have shaken their belly like a carpet it was grand illusion day when they escape their deep knowledge and pretend to look for handsome successors but it would be better to look for the heart and put an alarm clock in its place that could play reveille like a puppet but wouldn’t serve coffee in bed you should have rummaged under their false teeth to hunt for hidden diamonds with lively fingers hunt for them everywhere not find them even in the creases of their nakedness. Joy of being a child of the sovereign people of lending a hand to institutions and seeing one’s name inscribed on the slate of urinals in letters of coal tar for a single flag that one has become flapping its boredom at the angles of two streets that the wind stirs unless it’s first the wind of trumpets all love to the winds

Using the gun mounts for monkey bars, children skin the cat, pulling themselves through, suspended in doorways of abandoned helicopters in graveyards. With arms spread-eagled they imitate vultures landing in fields. Their play is silent as distant rain, the volume turned down on the 6 o’clock news, except for the boy with American eyes who keeps singing rat-a-tat-tat, hugging a broken machine gun.

1914-18 (Sea Warfare) They bear, in place of classic names, Letters and numbers on their skin. They play their grisly blindfold games In little boxes made of tin. Sometimes they stalk the Zeppelin, Sometimes they learn where mines are laid, Or where the Baltic ice is thin. That is the custom of "The Trade." Few prize-courts sit upon their claims. They seldom tow their targets in. They follow certain secret aims Down under, far from strife or din. When they are ready to begin No flag is flown, no fuss is made More than the shearing of a pin. That is the custom of "The Trade." The Scout's quadruple funnel flames A mark from Sweden to the Swin, The Cruiser's thund'rous screw proclaims Her comings out and goings in: But only whiffs of paraffin Or creamy rings that fizz and fade Show where the one-eyed Death has been. That is the custom of "The Trade." Their feats, their fortunes and their fames Are hidden from their nearest kin; No eager public backs or blames, No journal prints the yarn they spin (The Censor would not let it in! ) When they return from run or raid. Unheard they work, unseen they win. That is the custom of "The Trade."

A few days before the first snow the soldiers dressed like children began to appear. “Come quick,” said Beatrice, fetching Walter B. away from his scripture, “and bring candy!” Walter B. pulled on his robe and joined Beatrice on the balcony. “Oh look,” said Beatrice, “you can see their small, sweet eyes peeking through the bramble.” Walter B. threw a handful of red gumdrops into the air and watched the soldiers dressed like children scatter, and raise their arms in glee. “Feels sinful, doesn’t it?” purred Beatrice. They watched them stand in the field and chew. “Which one,” asked Walter B., “do you think is the hero?” “That one,” said Beatrice. “Definitely that one. The one with the mittens.” “Yes,” agreed Walter B., “the others seem less... festooned.” “And which one do you think,” asked Walter B., “is the traitor?” Beatrice bit her lip and looked around. “Maybe that one,” she said. “The one with the orange flower in the pocket of his vest.” Walter B. agreed, but to be certain he thought that he should ask. “Little traitor,” called out Walter B. The traitor looked up. “I knew it!” said Beatrice, clapping her hands. The traitor came closer. The wind shook the orange flower loose from his pocket, but he did not run after it. He missed his mother. The traitor came closer, but then he stopped. He curled into his flowerless vest and fell asleep. Walter B. and Beatrice yawned. The soldiers dressed like children opened their mouths as wide as they could, but there was no more candy. There would never again be more candy. And so they sailed away to another land.

When a hurricane sends Winds far enough north To put our power out, We only think of winning The war bodies wage To prove the border Between them isn’t real. An act of God, so sweet. No TV. No novel. No Recreation but one Another, and neither of us Willing to kill. I don’t care That I don’t love my lover. Knowing where to stroke In little light, knowing what Will happen to me and how Soon, these rank higher Than a clear view Of the face I’d otherwise Flay had I some training In combat, a blade, a few Matches. Candles are Romantic because We understand shadows. We recognize the shape Of what once made us Come, so we come Thinking of approach In ways that forgo Substance. I’m breathing — Heaving now — In my own skin, and I Know it. Romance is An act. The perimeter Stays intact. We make out So little that I can’t help But imagine my safety. I get to tell the truth About what kind Of a person lives and who Dies. Barefoot survivors. Damned heroes, each Corpse lit on a pyre. Patroclus died because He could not see What he really was inside His lover’s armor.

Grotesque and queerly huddled Contortionists to twist The sleepy soul to a sleep, We lie all sorts of ways And cannot sleep. The wet wind is so cold, And the lurching men so careless, That, should you drop to a doze, Wind’s fumble or men’s feet Is on your face.

It stops the town we come through. Workers raise Their oily arms in good salute and grin. Kids scream as at a circus. Business men Glance hopefully and go their measured way. And women standing at their dumbstruck door More slowly wave and seem to warn us back, As if a tear blinding the course of war Might once dissolve our iron in their sweet wish. Fruit of the world, O clustered on ourselves We hang as from a cornucopia In total friendliness, with faces bunched To spray the streets with catcalls and with leers. A bottle smashes on the moving ties And eyes fixed on a lady smiling pink Stretch like a rubber-band and snap and sting The mouth that wants the drink-of-water kiss. And on through crummy continents and days, Deliberate, grimy, slightly drunk we crawl, The good-bad boys of circumstance and chance, Whose bucket-helmets bang the empty wall Where twist the murdered bodies of our packs Next to the guns that only seem themselves. And distance like a strap adjusted shrinks, Tightens across the shoulder and holds firm. Here is a deck of cards; out of this hand Dealer, deal me my luck, a pair of bulls, The right draw to a flush, the one-eyed jack. Diamonds and hearts are red but spades are black, And spades are spades and clubs are clovers—black. But deal me winners, souvenirs of peace. This stands to reason and arithmetic, Luck also travels and not all come back. Trains lead to ships and ships to death or trains, And trains to death or trucks, and trucks to death, Or trucks lead to the march, the march to death, Or that survival which is all our hope; And death leads back to trucks and trains and ships, But life leads to the march, O flag! at last The place of life found after trains and death— Nightfall of nations brilliant after war.

Two armies stand enrolled beneath The banner with the starry wreath; One, facing battle, blight and blast, Through twice a hundred fields has passed; Its deeds against a ruffian foe, Steam, valley, hill, and mountain know, Till every wind that sweeps the land Goes, glory laden, from the strand. The other, with a narrower scope, Yet led by not less grand a hope, Hath won, perhaps, as proud a place, And wears its fame with meeker grace. Wives march beneath its glittering sign, Fond mothers swell the lovely line, And many a sweetheart hides her blush In the young patriot’s generous flush. No breeze of battle ever fanned The colors of that tender band; Its office is beside the bed, Where throbs some sick or wounded head. It does not court the soldier’s tomb, But plies the needle and the loom; And, by a thousand peaceful deeds, Supplies a struggling nation’s needs. Nor is that army’s gentle might Unfelt amid the deadly fight; It nerves the son’s, the husband's hand, It points the lover’s fearless brand; It thrills the languid, warms the cold, Gives even new courage to the bold; And sometimes lifts the veriest clod To its own lofty trust in God. When Heaven shall blow the trump of peace, And bid this weary warfare cease, Their several missions nobly done, The triumph grasped, and freedom won, Both armies, from their toils at rest, Alike may claim the victor’s crest, But each shall see its dearest prize Gleam softly from the other’s eyes.

And have we done with War at last? Well, we've been lucky devils both, And there's no need of pledge or oath To bind our lovely friendship fast, By firmer stuff Close bound enough. By wire and wood and stake we're bound, By Fricourt and by Festubert, By whipping rain, by the sun's glare, By all the misery and loud sound, By a Spring day, By Picard clay. Show me the two so closely bound As we, by the wet bond of blood, By friendship blossoming from mud, By Death: we faced him, and we found Beauty in Death, In dead men, breath.

Eighteen-sixty eighteen sixty-four, six hundred ten thousand men gaseous gray, blackened body parts like chopped wood in Virginia sunshine. Or nineteen-fourteen nineteen-eighteen, trench rats, thousands, big as badgers, rip chines from horse and human flesh. IED's, cluster bombs, punji sticks, primed to shred feet, thighs, spine, sack, yesterday, when we were countless. Conscience says Count them up and be good, suck on me like red candy stick in casual lookaway moments. Protected by neighbors, two girls villagers know to be deficient doll themselves up as bombs for market day's chickens and yams, and like a world-body neural surge, their protectors fly into fatty parts.