All Is Secure ...

[harry hackedoff]

Lobster, Wilf Owen`s poetry about WWI is often very desultary. "Dulce Et Decorum Est" for instance. When I read your example I couldn`t help thinking of that bloke, John summat, wears glasses, who writes pomes wot don`t quite rhyme. Spoiled the effect, more than somewhat

Brother Rudyard takes some beating, though. Before his son died in the trenches and he met every boat from France, searching for news of his lost child, his stuff was the best. `Cept for the shite about " giddy hermaphrodites" in " Soldier an Sailor, too" obviously.

One of me faves about the Afgan Wars, begins....

"There`s a marble covered whore-house, in the town of Kandahar,
Where I was nutted senseless, by a Bootneck, called JR.
I had tried to have my passion, with the comely young Loz-Hop
But she was JR`s woman, and I was for the chop"
Perhaps you remember the next verse

[JR]

Ah,The green eye of the little yellow god?,used to be a favourite with the 'stripeys' on Mess night.Shall I publish or not that is the question.Aye JR

[Kat =^..^=]

Arithmetic on the Frontier

A great and glorious thing it is
To learn, for seven years or so,
The Lord knows what of that and this,
Ere reckoned fit to face the foe --
The flying bullet down the Pass,
That whistles clear: "All flesh is grass."

Three hundred pounds per annum spent
On making brain and body meeter
For all the murderous intent
Comprised in "villanous saltpetre!"
And after -- ask the Yusufzaies
What comes of all our 'ologies.

A scrimmage in a Border Station --
A canter down some dark defile --
Two thousand pounds of education
Drops to a ten-rupee jezail --
The Crammer's boast, the Squadron's pride,
Shot like a rabbit in a ride!

No proposition Euclid wrote,
No formulae the text-books know,
Will turn the bullet from your coat,
Or ward the tulwar's downward blow
Strike hard who cares -- shoot straight who can --
The odds are on the cheaper man.

One sword-knot stolen from the camp
Will pay for all the school expenses
Of any Kurrum Valley scamp
Who knows no word of moods and tenses,
But, being blessed with perfect sight,
Picks off our messmates left and right.

With home-bred hordes the hillsides teem,
The troopships bring us one by one,
At vast expense of time and steam,
To slay Afridis where they run.
The "captives of our bow and spear"
Are cheap, alas! as we are dear.

Rudyard Kilping

[Artist]

Mary Phuge was only two
When she went out of doors
She went out standing up she did
But she came back on all fours
The moral to this story is
Please meditate and pause
Never send a baby out with loosely waisted drawers!

Spike Milligan.

Artist

[Maria]

Sticky,

I too would agree that Sassoon's descriptions are more horrific and he did indeed push the boundaries of acceptability. However, one pice of writing by Sassoon has recently stuck a chord with me - I know this thread is poetry but I was wondering what others might think of this:


A Soldier’s Declaration

"I am making this statement as an act of willful defiance of military authority, because I believe that the war is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it.

I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers. I believe that this war, upon which I entered as a war of defence and liberation, has now become a war of aggression and conquest.

I believe that the purposes for which I and my fellow-soldiers entered upon this war should have been so clearly stated as to have made it impossible to change them, and that, had this been done, the objects which actuated us would now be attainable by negotiation.

I have seen and endured the sufferings of the troops, and I can no longer be a party to prolong these sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust.

I am not protesting against the conduct of the war, but against the political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men are being sacrificed.

On behalf of those who are suffering now I make this protest against the deception which is being practiced on them; also I believe that I may help to destroy the callous complacence with which the majority of those at home regard the continuance of agonies which they do not share, and which they have not sufficient imagination to realise."

Siegfried L. Sassoon...July 1917

[Kat =^..^=]

. . . Perhaps it is my fascination of the inhumanity of the human race that made me look for more.

Stix, I can relate to that, I too find that the words of some poets are able to draw my attention to their pain with the magic they are able to create when they piece together their anguise, love, thoughts and fears, allowing us to share it in the form of poems ...

[Maria]

My thoughts exactly Loz.

It is interesting to note that after writing this open letter Sassoon threw his Military Cross into a river (not sure which one) and his Commanding Officers responded to his letter by having him declared insane.

[Kat =^..^=]

. . .I know this thread is poetry but I was wondering what others might think of this:

Any word that touches you in some way is poetry :fadein:

[Maria]

Any words that touch you in some way is poetry

including four lettered ones - dosh, beer, guys?

[Kat =^..^=]

In a station in the city a British soldier stood
Talking to the people there if the people would
Some just stared in hatred, and others turned in pain
And the lonely British soldier wished he was back home again

Come join the British Army! said the posters in his town
See the world and have your fun come serve before the Crown
The jobs were hard to come by and he could not face the dole
So he took his country's shilling and enlisted on the roll

For there was no fear of fighting, the Empire long was lost
Just ten years in the army getting paid for being bossed
Then leave a man experienced a man who's made the grade
A medal and a pension some mem'ries and a trade

Then came the call for Ireland as the call had come before
Another bloody chapter in an endless civil war
The priests they stood on both sides the priests they stood behind
Another fight in Jesus's name the blind against the blind

The soldier stood between them between the whistling stones
And then the broken bottles that led to broken bonmes
The petrol bombs that burnt his hands the nails that pierced his skin
And wished that he had stayed at home surrounded by his kin

The station filled with people the soldier soon was bored
But better in the station than where the people warred
The room filled up with mothers with daughters and with sons
Who stared with itchy fingers at the soldier and his gun

A yell of fear a screech of brakes the shattering of glass
The window of the station broke to let the package pass
A scream came from the mothers as they ran towards the door
Dragging their children crying from the bomb upon the floor

The soldier stood and could not move his gun he could not use
He knew the bomb had seconds and not minutes on the fuse
He could not run and pick it up and throw it in the street
There were far too many people there too many running feet

Take cover! yelled the soldier, Take cover for your lives
And the Irishmen threw down their young and stood before their wives
They turned towards the soldier their eyes alive with fear
For God's sake save our children or they'll end their short lives here

The soldier moved towards the bomb his stomach like a stone
Why was this his battle God why was he alone
He lay down on the package and he murmured one farewell
To those at home in England to those he loved so well

He saw the sights of summer felt the wind upon his brow
The young girls in the city parks how precious were they now
The soaring of the swallow the beauty of the swan
The music of the turning world so soon would it be gone

A muffled soft explosion and the room began to quake
The soldier blown across the floor his blood a crimson lake
There was no time to cry or shout there was no time to moan
And they turned their children's faces from the blood and from the bones

The crowd outside soon gathered and the ambulances came
To carry off the body of a pawn lost in the game
And the crowd they clapped and cheered and they sang their rebel song
One soldier less to interfere where he did not belong

And will the children growing up learn at their mothers' knees
The story of the soldier who bought their liberty
Who used his youthful body as a means towards an end
Who gave his life to those who called him murderer not friend

This is a song by Harvey Andrews called Solider ...