502 War poems

And when her son never returned from the meant-to-crush-him camps, the crucible of Poland, always-hard-at-work Isa slept for endless hours, and once, under her lids, she was led, by diligent female Virgils, to a vast meadow where an inspirited Isa embraced, one by one, countless women who remained in mourning for their cherished sons. Gallant and stricken, together the myriad bereaved but defiant women formed an ever-widening circle, prodigal with bitter tears, and then, suddenly, like a jackdaw darting from eave to sun-drenched eave, something flew between the throats of the grieving, heart-gutted mothers, and a great beauty arose: In the dream, Isa recalled, the singing of the harrowed women with war-taken sons hushed the world's barrenness. In the dream, the startling river of sound altered the embattled earth.

Tournaments lasted days and changed you, but today the living and dead are speaking through microphone of “I Voted” button, erogenous zone, a place in the mind’s wrestle, pause that votes and bets. Other voters return to homes, run dishwasher, read to kids, get high and craft. Still others walk the golf course turning gold with sprinkler. Returns are noted. No one hangs who had not already planned to hang. At some point I’ve thrown almost everything, and broken within, activated like a glow stick. It is a sustained throwing; an act with its stink of trash — power out — each evening, the stairs and the light switch, and a pause at the open door. Unenunciated stair-structures are closing off the switch from voice to silence. This morning, a snail bore its huge garden shell, the color of owl, into the afternoon. How to choose what to bring! I set the excess down by the door, for nobody who is there, or seems that way. Near the fire. Where the weather vane points is where I’ll carry my father, slung fleece and steady footfall into the valley of the painting above the couch, brushstrokes crazed and smoked, enveloping the riders, us, trot-dazed in a conjectured landscape paralyzed by the wind’s chisel. The clouds are a sheet the volcano staples above parking lots to hills where owners shit and talk on the last phones. As long as the sheet holds I will be darling. Or it is the mildewed sail battened down where I hide from fathers. Light rain makes rooftops new. Boughs fracture like lines an iced-over pond zags ahead of a boot and in there we get glimpses of inquiry, otherness to learn more about. Silence becomes the subject the speaker set out to be, landscape’s counterpart, and reflection my resemblance. A hand goes up to stop the process, and, when the process doesn’t stop, suppresses until the next moment approaches, and passes, the bid dizzy with regeneration. Let’s fold this balloon into animals, vehicles, a weapon, the air inside song, or last breath, or first. I’m a dog when I ape my words. Who would dent or differ? The teeth of the pig are, it whispers, red and brown and recede now that they have been mentioned. When I look close: not us. What is inexpressed? This departure hurries by and is like the lion who simultaneously guards the books and elsewhere tests the river with a paw, stone in the first and lean flesh in the other world where the sun is blessing its glide back into thornbushes and I am stone, guarding stone. There is no predator I would like to be torn in half by, from the logging road a cut like a jeweler’s work down to the shore where the sea stars disappeared leaving nukes and love metered and syllabary and also the rocks they used to cling to exposed at low tide, green clocks. At dawn a fishing boat’s uncertain past the rock offshore, chord on chord. Warped sexual knuckle in flushed purple and hundreds of shades of orange, herpetic and stone to touch, cut, they grow back, vitrified, easy to draw. Round was the dish of mints in the conference room where we signed over my mother’s liver, some mints were soft and pastel, some hard with white covering. Mint grows back in the creek. The liver grows back too, largest organ in the body. No, not skin, mother, skin is on the body — we addressed this with the host at trivia night no, not the one I go to each Sunday with friends, the constant one I sleep inside of every blink. Time’s the thing that’s not the mind or the baby, which wants a nipple. Time’s a baby in a sling, all the babies in the park on blankets, beginning, a minor electricity, water and dust a kind of suet in a hanging cage and is larger than whatever the universe turns out to be (a strawberry pip) all tough winter, which has been shown to prosper. Seen from the past the line is the present when the astronauts came back, bid us bury our gravity and grow the lines that are the story of loneliness, waste, either enough or not enough. I walk past the potted plants in the side alley, marigold, sunfollower, a good plate, give a little water, adjust the moments. Constellation of last images before sleep: a walk around the drained reservoir, arrival at the island; having a theater all to yourself and they show the movie anyway. Formless or forming interior scrumble: the fluttering of her eyelid is like what floats up the chimney. Something inside is being stepped-down to the noises from when I was here last. This time of year you can see to the bottom of the lake.

Men of the Twenty-first Up by the Chalk Pit Wood, Weak with our wounds and our thirst, Wanting our sleep and our food, After a day and a night. God, shall we ever forget? Beaten and broke in the fight, But sticking it, sticking it yet, Trying to hold the line, Fainting and spent and done; Always the thud and the whine, Always the yell of the Hun. Northumberland, Lancaster, York, Durham and Somerset, Fighting alone, worn to the bone, But sticking it, sticking it yet. Never a message of hope, Never a word of cheer! Fronting Hill 70’s shell-swept slope, With the dull, dead plain in our rear; Always the shriek of the shell, Always the roar of the burst, Always the tortures of Hell, As waiting and wincing we cursed Our luck, the guns, and the Boche. When our Corporal shouted “Stand to!” And I heard some one cry, “Clear the front for the Guards!”— And the Guards came through. Our throats they were parched and hot, But Lord, if you’d heard the cheer, Irish and Welsh and Scot, Coldstream and Grenadier— Two Brigades, if you please, Dressing as straight as a hem. We, we were down on our knees, Praying for us and for them, Praying with tear-wet cheek, Praying with outstretched hand. Lord! I could speak for a week, But how could you understand? How could your cheeks be wet? Such feelin’s don’t come to you; But how can me or my mates forget When the Guards came through? “Five yards left extend!” It passed from rank to rank, And line after line, with never a bend, And a touch of the London swank. A trifle of swank and dash, Cool as a home parade, Twinkle, glitter and flash, Flinching never a shade, With the shrapnel right in their face, Doing their Hyde Park stunt, Swinging along at an easy pace, Arms at the trail, eyes front. Man! it was great to see! Man! it was fine to do! It’s a cot, and hospital ward for me, But I’ll tell them in Blighty wherever I be, How the Guards came through.

You may talk o’ gin and beer When you’re quartered safe out ’ere, An’ you’re sent to penny-fights an’ Aldershot it; But when it comes to slaughter You will do your work on water, An’ you’ll lick the bloomin’ boots of ’im that’s got it. Now in Injia’s sunny clime, Where I used to spend my time A-servin’ of ’Er Majesty the Queen, Of all them blackfaced crew The finest man I knew Was our regimental bhisti, Gunga Din, He was ‘Din! Din! Din! ‘You limpin’ lump o’ brick-dust, Gunga Din! ‘Hi! Slippy hitherao ‘Water, get it!Panee lao, ‘You squidgy-nosed old idol, Gunga Din.’ The uniform ’e wore Was nothin’ much before, An’ rather less than ’arf o’ that be’ind, For a piece o’ twisty rag An’ a goatskin water-bag Was all the field-equipment ’e could find. When the sweatin’ troop-train lay In a sidin’ through the day, Where the ’eat would make your bloomin’ eyebrows crawl, We shouted ‘Harry By!’ Till our throats were bricky-dry, Then we wopped ’im ’cause ’e couldn’t serve us all. It was ‘Din! Din! Din! ‘You ’eathen, where the mischief ’ave you been? ‘You put some juldee in it ‘Or I’ll marrow you this minute ‘If you don’t fill up my helmet, Gunga Din!’ ’E would dot an’ carry one Till the longest day was done; An’ ’e didn’t seem to know the use o’ fear. If we charged or broke or cut, You could bet your bloomin’ nut, ’E’d be waitin’ fifty paces right flank rear. With ’is mussick on ’is back, ’E would skip with our attack, An’ watch us till the bugles made 'Retire,’ An’ for all ’is dirty ’ide ’E was white, clear white, inside When ’e went to tend the wounded under fire! It was ‘Din! Din! Din!’ With the bullets kickin’ dust-spots on the green. When the cartridges ran out, You could hear the front-ranks shout, ‘Hi! ammunition-mules an' Gunga Din!’ I shan’t forgit the night When I dropped be’ind the fight With a bullet where my belt-plate should ’a’ been. I was chokin’ mad with thirst, An’ the man that spied me first Was our good old grinnin’, gruntin’ Gunga Din. ’E lifted up my ’ead, An’ he plugged me where I bled, An’ ’e guv me ’arf-a-pint o’ water green. It was crawlin’ and it stunk, But of all the drinks I’ve drunk, I’m gratefullest to one from Gunga Din. It was 'Din! Din! Din! ‘’Ere’s a beggar with a bullet through ’is spleen; ‘’E's chawin’ up the ground, ‘An’ ’e’s kickin’ all around: ‘For Gawd’s sake git the water, Gunga Din!’ ’E carried me away To where a dooli lay, An’ a bullet come an’ drilled the beggar clean. ’E put me safe inside, An’ just before ’e died, 'I ’ope you liked your drink,’ sez Gunga Din. So I’ll meet ’im later on At the place where ’e is gone— Where it’s always double drill and no canteen. ’E’ll be squattin’ on the coals Givin’ drink to poor damned souls, An’ I’ll get a swig in hell from Gunga Din! Yes, Din! Din! Din! You Lazarushian-leather Gunga Din! Though I’ve belted you and flayed you, By the livin’ Gawd that made you, You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din!

(SUGGESTED INSCRIPTION PROBABLY NOT SUGGESTED BY THE COMMITTEE) The hucksters haggle in the mart The cars and carts go by; Senates and schools go droning on; For dead things cannot die. A storm stooped on the place of tombs With bolts to blast and rive; But these be names of many men The lightning found alive. If usurers rule and rights decay And visions view once more Great Carthage like a golden shell Gape hollow on the shore, Still to the last of crumbling time Upon this stone be read How many men of England died To prove they were not dead.

1914 For all we have and are, For all our children's fate, Stand up and take the war. The Hun is at the gate! Our world has passed away, In wantonness o'erthrown. There is nothing left to-day But steel and fire and stone! Though all we knew depart, The old Commandments stand:— "In courage kept your heart, In strength lift up your hand." Once more we hear the word That sickened earth of old:— "No law except the Sword Unsheathed and uncontrolled." Once more it knits mankind, Once more the nations go To meet and break and bind A crazed and driven foe. Comfort, content, delight, The ages' slow-bought gain, They shrivelled in a night. Only ourselves remain To face the naked days In silent fortitude, Through perils and dismays Renewed and re-renewed. Though all we made depart, The old Commandments stand:— "In patience keep your heart, In strength lift up your hand." No easy hope or lies Shall bring us to our goal, But iron sacrifice Of body, will, and soul. There is but one task for all— One life for each to give. What stands if Freedom fall? Who dies if England live?

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children, England mourns for her dead across the sea. Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit, Fallen in the cause of the free. Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres, There is music in the midst of desolation And a glory that shines upon our tears. They went with songs to the battle, they were young, Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow. They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted; They fell with their faces to the foe. They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them. They mingle not with their laughing comrades again; They sit no more at familiar tables of home; They have no lot in our labour of the day-time; They sleep beyond England's foam. But where our desires are and our hopes profound, Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight, To the innermost heart of their own land they are known As the stars are known to the Night; As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust, Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain; As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness, To the end, to the end, they remain.

To bomb them, we mustn’t have heard their music or known their waterless night watch, we mustn’t have seen how already the desert was under constant death bells ringing over sleeping cribs and dry wells. We couldn’t have wanted this eavesdropping of names we’ve never pronounced praying themselves towards death. I try to believe in us— we must not have heard their music.

If only I could forget him, the Frenchman I saw outside our quarters, creeping round near daybreak in that density of garden as if he'd almost grown into the ground. He was just looking back, peering about him to check that he was safe here and alone: once he was sure, his plunder was all his! Whatever chanced, he'd not be moving on. He was already eating. He was wolfing a pilfered turnip hidden in his rags. Eating raw cattle feed. But he'd no sooner swallowed a mouthful than it made him gag; and the sweet food encountered on his tongue delight and then disgust, as it might be the unhappy and the happy, meeting in their bodies' all-consuming ecstasy. Only forget that body. . . Shoulder blades trembling, and a hand all skin and bone, the palm cramming his mouth in such a way that it too seemed to feed in clinging on. And then the furious and desperate shame of organs galled with one another, forced to tear from one another what should bind them together in community at last. The way his clumsy feet had been left out of all that gibbering bestial joy; and how they stood splayed out and paralyzed beneath the body's torture and fierce rapture now. And his look too—if I could forget that! Retching, he went on gobbling as if driven on and on, just to eat, no matter what, anything, this or that, himself even. Why go on? It turned out that he'd escaped from the prison camp nearby—guards came for him. I wander, as I did then in that garden, among my garden shadows here at home. "If only I could forget him, the Frenchman"— I'm looking through my notes, I read one out, and from my ears, my eyes, my mouth, the seething memory boils over in his shout: "I'm hungry!" And immediately I feel the undying hunger which this wretched creature has long since ceased to feel, for which there is no mitigating nourishment in nature. He feeds on me. More and more hungrily! And I'm less and less sufficient, for my part. Now he, who would have been contented once with any kind of food, demands my heart.

At a bus stop in Arles a fellow wounded in the Last War winced into sunlight:Oui, they are beating the drums against les juifs again, and the Moors. France is an old man!