502 War poems

In December 1941, after Lvov had already been seized by Nazis while you labored diligently by day as a quiet feeder of lice in a virus lab and joined your heart to the resistance that would rise in Warsaw, my own country’s agents took me from my home in Lā‘ie, placed me in a jail cell in Honolulu and interrogated me for many days. Neither of us had thought of our poetry then, Zbigniew, not of the caustic sarcasm of your strophes stripped of pious words, not of the praises of the life I would lose like a lavish field of rice once bending with weight but blighted overnight by the black cowls of disease. I told them I was just a storekeeper who liked night fishing — no submarines was I signaling offshore, nothing but schooling fish did I hope would come to the sputtering lights of my torches that I stuck in the sand like stakes for growing beans in my family garden. The ocean knew of my intentions, lapping softly at my knees, curling in kind, foaming waters around the bones of my bare feet. And the winds knew of my 
poverty, sending me a cloudless night sky, stippling the lagoon with stalks of red flames. But my government questioners cited my language was the enemy’s, my academy in Hiroshima a military school, my citizen’s heart black as diesel. They sent me to a barracks on an island in Pearl Harbor where I could see the burnt wreckage of scores of ships, hear their moaning steel like drowned sailors who still cry out, throats choked with oil, from their watery graves, feel nothing but panic and regret as though a child had died, my hope wrapped in old newspapers and thrown away like offal cleaned from a fish the size of a man. Then to a ship bound for Oakland, and by train and truck with men like me, Japanese all, to Fort Missoula, and a cold wind like a dull razor scraping across my stubbled face. What was my crime except to belong to an enemy race? Why can they not see that I love, like them, the promise that is this land like a wife to whom we have sworn only faith and practiced devotion? I would wash her feet with water gathered in a canvas bucket, carry her burdens across canefields and over the shallows of our bay, ruffled with wind, if she would, yet once more as on her bridal evening, speak her vows and turn the soft bundles of her body, heaving like a warm tide in my arms, back to mine.

this mangy plot where by now only mothers still come, only mothers guard the nameless plots • and then sparingly • Peepholes burnt through the metal doors of their solitary cells, • just large enough for three fingers to curl out for a lemon to pass through for an ear to be held against for one eye then the other to regard the hallway to regard the cell and inmate • peepholes without a lens so when the guard comes to inspect me, I inspect him. Touch me, he said. • And through that opening I did.

Permit me to open by expressing joy and wonder that we're marching at the head of our companies in different uniforms under a different command but with a single aim—to survive You say to me—look here we should probably let these boys go home to their Margot to their Kasia war is beautiful only in parades but apart from that as we know—mud and blood and rats As you speak comes an avalanche of artillery fire it's that bastard Parkinson who is taking so long he caught up with us at last when we took a walk on an irregular route our collars loose at the chin our hands in our pockets we were on leave already when Parkinson suddenly reminded us that it was not the end yet that this blasted war isn't over yet

One would remember still Meadows and low hill Laventie was, as to the line and elm row Growing through green strength wounded, as home elms grow. Shimmer of summer there and blue autumn mists Seen from trench-ditch winding in mazy twists. The Australian gunners in close flowery hiding Cunning found out at last, and smashed in the unspeakable lists. And the guns in the smashed wood thumping and grinding. The letters written there, and received there, Books, cakes, cigarettes in a parish of famine, And leaks in rainy times with general all-damning. The crater, and carrying of gas cylinders on two sticks (Pain past comparison and far past right agony gone) Strained hopelessly of heart and frame at first fix. Café-au-lait in dug-outs on Tommies' cookers, Cursed minniewerfs, thirst in eighteen-hour summer. The Australian miners clayed, and the being afraid Before strafes, sultry August dusk time than Death dumber — And the cooler hush after the strafe, and the long night wait — The relief of first dawn, the crawling out to look at it, Wonder divine of Dawn, man hesitating before Heaven's gate. (Though not on Coopers where music fire took at it, Though not as at Framilode beauty where body did shake at it) Yet the dawn with aeroplanes crawling high at Heaven's gate Lovely aerial beetles of wonderful scintillate Strangest interest, and puffs of soft purest white — Soaking light, dispersing colouring for fancy's delight. Of Maconachie, Paxton, Tickler, and Gloucester's Stephens; Fray Bentos, Spiller and Baker, odds and evens Of trench food, but the everlasting clean craving For bread, the pure thing, blessed beyond saving. Canteen disappointments, and the keen boy braving Bullets or such for grouse roused surprisingly through (Halfway) Stand-to. And the shell nearly blunted my razor at shaving; Tilleloy, Pauquissart, Neuve Chapelle, and mud like glue. But Laventie, most of all, I think is to soldiers The Town itself with plane trees, and small-spa air; And vin, rouge-blanc, chocolat, citron, grenadine: One might buy in small delectable cafés there. The broken church, and vegetable fields bare; Neat French market town look so clean, And the clarity, amiability of North French air.

White founts falling in the courts of the sun, And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run; There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared, It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard, It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips, For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships. They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy, They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea, And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss, And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross, The cold queen of England is looking in the glass; The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass; From evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun, And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun. Dim drums throbbing, in the hills half heard, Where only on a nameless throne a crownless prince has stirred, Where, risen from a doubtful seat and half attainted stall, The last knight of Europe takes weapons from the wall, The last and lingering troubadour to whom the bird has sung, That once went singing southward when all the world was young, In that enormous silence, tiny and unafraid, Comes up along a winding road the noise of the Crusade. Strong gongs groaning as the guns boom far, Don John of Austria is going to the war, Stiff flags straining in the night-blasts cold In the gloom black-purple, in the glint old-gold, Torchlight crimson on the copper kettle-drums, Then the tuckets, then the trumpets, then the cannon, and he comes. Don John laughing in the brave beard curled, Spurning of his stirrups like the thrones of all the world, Holding his head up for a flag of all the free. Love-light of Spain—hurrah! Death-light of Africa! Don John of Austria Is riding to the sea. Mahound is in his paradise above the evening star, (Don John of Austria is going to the war.) He moves a mighty turban on the timeless houri’s knees, His turban that is woven of the sunset and the seas. He shakes the peacock gardens as he rises from his ease, And he strides among the tree-tops and is taller than the trees, And his voice through all the garden is a thunder sent to bring Black Azrael and Ariel and Ammon on the wing. Giants and the Genii, Multiplex of wing and eye, Whose strong obedience broke the sky When Solomon was king. They rush in red and purple from the red clouds of the morn, From temples where the yellow gods shut up their eyes in scorn; They rise in green robes roaring from the green hells of the sea Where fallen skies and evil hues and eyeless creatures be; On them the sea-valves cluster and the grey sea-forests curl, Splashed with a splendid sickness, the sickness of the pearl; They swell in sapphire smoke out of the blue cracks of the ground,— They gather and they wonder and give worship to Mahound. And he saith, “Break up the mountains where the hermit-folk can hide, And sift the red and silver sands lest bone of saint abide, And chase the Giaours flying night and day, not giving rest, For that which was our trouble comes again out of the west. We have set the seal of Solomon on all things under sun, Of knowledge and of sorrow and endurance of things done, But a noise is in the mountains, in the mountains, and I know The voice that shook our palaces—four hundred years ago: It is he that saith not ‘Kismet’; it is he that knows not Fate ; It is Richard, it is Raymond, it is Godfrey in the gate! It is he whose loss is laughter when he counts the wager worth, Put down your feet upon him, that our peace be on the earth.” For he heard drums groaning and he heard guns jar, (Don John of Austria is going to the war.) Sudden and still—hurrah! Bolt from Iberia! Don John of Austria Is gone by Alcalar. St. Michael’s on his mountain in the sea-roads of the north (Don John of Austria is girt and going forth.) Where the grey seas glitter and the sharp tides shift And the sea folk labour and the red sails lift. He shakes his lance of iron and he claps his wings of stone; The noise is gone through Normandy; the noise is gone alone; The North is full of tangled things and texts and aching eyes And dead is all the innocence of anger and surprise, And Christian killeth Christian in a narrow dusty room, And Christian dreadeth Christ that hath a newer face of doom, And Christian hateth Mary that God kissed in Galilee, But Don John of Austria is riding to the sea. Don John calling through the blast and the eclipse Crying with the trumpet, with the trumpet of his lips, Trumpet that sayeth ha! Domino gloria! Don John of Austria Is shouting to the ships. King Philip’s in his closet with the Fleece about his neck (Don John of Austria is armed upon the deck.) The walls are hung with velvet that is black and soft as sin, And little dwarfs creep out of it and little dwarfs creep in. He holds a crystal phial that has colours like the moon, He touches, and it tingles, and he trembles very soon, And his face is as a fungus of a leprous white and grey Like plants in the high houses that are shuttered from the day, And death is in the phial, and the end of noble work, But Don John of Austria has fired upon the Turk. Don John’s hunting, and his hounds have bayed— Booms away past Italy the rumour of his raid Gun upon gun, ha! ha! Gun upon gun, hurrah! Don John of Austria Has loosed the cannonade. The Pope was in his chapel before day or battle broke, (Don John of Austria is hidden in the smoke.) The hidden room in man’s house where God sits all the year, The secret window whence the world looks small and very dear. He sees as in a mirror on the monstrous twilight sea The crescent of his cruel ships whose name is mystery; They fling great shadows foe-wards, making Cross and Castle dark, They veil the plumèd lions on the galleys of St. Mark; And above the ships are palaces of brown, black-bearded chiefs, And below the ships are prisons, where with multitudinous griefs, Christian captives sick and sunless, all a labouring race repines Like a race in sunken cities, like a nation in the mines. They are lost like slaves that sweat, and in the skies of morning hung The stair-ways of the tallest gods when tyranny was young. They are countless, voiceless, hopeless as those fallen or fleeing on Before the high Kings’ horses in the granite of Babylon. And many a one grows witless in his quiet room in hell Where a yellow face looks inward through the lattice of his cell, And he finds his God forgotten, and he seeks no more a sign— (But Don John of Austria has burst the battle-line!) Don John pounding from the slaughter-painted poop, Purpling all the ocean like a bloody pirate’s sloop, Scarlet running over on the silvers and the golds, Breaking of the hatches up and bursting of the holds, Thronging of the thousands up that labour under sea White for bliss and blind for sun and stunned for liberty. Vivat Hispania! Domino Gloria!

I tell her I love her like not killing or ten minutes of sleep beneath the low rooftop wall on which my rifle rests. I tell her in a letter that will stink, when she opens it, of bolt oil and burned powder and the things it says. I tell her how Pvt. Bartle says, offhand, that war is just us making little pieces of metal pass through each other.

I Happy are men who yet before they are killed Can let their veins run cold. Whom no compassion fleers Or makes their feet Sore on the alleys cobbled with their brothers. The front line withers. But they are troops who fade, not flowers, For poets’ tearful fooling: Men, gaps for filling: Losses, who might have fought Longer; but no one bothers. II And some cease feeling Even themselves or for themselves. Dullness best solves The tease and doubt of shelling, And Chance’s strange arithmetic Comes simpler than the reckoning of their shilling. They keep no check on armies’ decimation. III Happy are these who lose imagination: They have enough to carry with ammunition. Their spirit drags no pack. Their old wounds, save with cold, can not more ache. Having seen all things red, Their eyes are rid Of the hurt of the colour of blood for ever. And terror’s first constriction over, Their hearts remain small-drawn. Their senses in some scorching cautery of battle Now long since ironed, Can laugh among the dying, unconcerned. IV Happy the soldier home, with not a notion How somewhere, every dawn, some men attack, And many sighs are drained. Happy the lad whose mind was never trained: His days are worth forgetting more than not. He sings along the march Which we march taciturn, because of dusk, The long, forlorn, relentless trend From larger day to huger night. V We wise, who with a thought besmirch Blood over all our soul, How should we see our task But through his blunt and lashless eyes? Alive, he is not vital overmuch; Dying, not mortal overmuch; Nor sad, nor proud, Nor curious at all. He cannot tell Old men’s placidity from his. VI But cursed are dullards whom no cannon stuns, That they should be as stones. Wretched are they, and mean With paucity that never was simplicity. By choice they made themselves immune To pity and whatever moans in man Before the last sea and the hapless stars; Whatever mourns when many leave these shores; Whatever shares The eternal reciprocity of tears.

What appear to be peach-white, over-washed pajamas in the washed-out newspaper photo on one side droop like a monk’s hood, the upper half of that leg raised with the other, whole one and the hands they’re there! and the less washed-out pink balloon above them that they reach for or have just let go —the latter probably as one hand, palm up, is wide of it, two-thirds of a laughing mouth visible, the wheelchair in this case, its sparkle stark against the flannel and plied living limbs within it, a tool of fun. Such wisdom’s possible here only, the ability to feel glad to be alive gone on the outside, the “cloistered incarceration” of the ward holding the boys as if they were a group of monks. Asked by a visitor what it’s like to live secluded most of the time, mute and with forced labor, a chronic lack of sleep for all the praying, the Benedictine monk asked back: “Have you ever been in love?”

1. In the first year of war they played “bride and groom” and counted everything on their fingers: their faces reflected in the river; the waves that swept away their faces before disappearing; and the names of newborns. Then the war grew up and invented a new game for them: the winner is the one who returns from the journey alone, full of stories of the dead as the passing wings flutter over the broken trees; and now the winner must tow the hills of dust so lightly that no one feels it; and now the winner wears a necklace with half a metal heart for a pendant, and the task to follow is to forget the other half. The war grew old and left the old letters, the calendars and newspapers, to turn yellow with the news, with the numbers, and with the names of the players. 2. Five centuries have passed since Scheherazade told her tale. Baghdad fell, and they forced me to the underworld. I watch the shadows as they pass behind the wall: none look like Tammuz. He would cross thousands of miles for the sake of a single cup of tea poured by my own hand. I fear the tea is growing cold: cold tea is worse than death. 3. I would not have found this cracked jar if it weren’t for my loneliness, which sees gold in all that glitters. Inside the jar is the magic plant that Gilgamesh never stopped looking for. I’ll show it to Tammuz when he comes, and we’ll journey, as fast as light, to all the continents of the world, and all who smell it will be cured or freed, or will know its secret. I don’t want Tammuz to come too late to hear my urgent song. 4. When Tammuz comes I’ll also give him all the lists I made to pass the time: lists of food, of books, lost friends, favorite songs, list of cities to see before one dies, and lists of ordinary things with notes to prove that we are still alive. 5. It’s as if I’m hearing music in the boat’s hull, as if I can smell the river, the lily, the fish, as if I’m touching the skies that fall from the words “I love you, ” as if I can see those tiny notes that are read over and over again, as if I’m living the lives of birds who bear nothing but their feathers. 6. The earth circled the sun once more and not a cloud nor wind nor country passed through my eyes. My shadow, imprisoned in Aladdin’s lamp, mirrors the following: a picture of the world with you inside, light passing through a needle’s eye, scrawlings akin to cuneiform, hidden paths to the sun, dried clay, tranquil Ottoman pottery, and a huge pomegranate, its seeds scattered all over Uruk. 7. In Iraq, after a thousand and one nights, someone will talk to someone else. Markets will open for regular customers. Small feet will tickle the giant feet of the Tigris. Gulls will spread their wings and no one will fire at them. Women will walk the streets without looking back in fear. Men will give their real names without putting their lives at risk. Children will go to school and come home again. Chickens in the villages won't peck at human flesh on the grass. Disputes will take place without any explosives. A cloud will pass over cars heading to work as usual. A hand will wave to someone leaving or returning. The sunrise will be the same for those who wake and those never will. And every moment something ordinary will happen under the sun.

I know that I shall meet my fate Somewhere among the clouds above; Those that I fight I do not hate, Those that I guard I do not love; My country is Kiltartan Cross, My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor, No likely end could bring them loss Or leave them happier than before. Nor law, nor duty bade me fight, Nor public men, nor cheering crowds, A lonely impulse of delight Drove to this tumult in the clouds; I balanced all, brought all to mind, The years to come seemed waste of breath, A waste of breath the years behind In balance with this life, this death.