From Alan Matheson:
11 am on the 11.11.2012 Remembrance Day.
Always seems to me a good idea to steer clear of politicians, historians, RSL officials,columnists, & army chaplains on ANZAC & Remembrance Days………….stay with the poets.
Wilfred Owen is always a good place to start.
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!â€â€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.â€â€
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,â€â€
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. ( “It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.â€Â)
   War is now sanitised….heroes are worshipped….the dead in carefully rehearsed processions led by ribboned officers & costumed chaplains appear on the nightly news………& those whose minds are shattered & twisted are quietly hidden out of sight. Poets however never let the reader or the hesitant observer escape.  Owen again
“Who are these? Why sit they here in the twilight?
Wherefore rock they, purgatorial shadows,
Drooping tongues from jaws that slob their relish,
Baring teeth that leer like skulls’ tongues wicked?……..
These are men whose minds the Dead have ravished……
(“Mental Cases”, Wilfred Owen  http://www.englishverse.com/poems/mental_cases  )
Lest we forget
Discussion
Comments are disallowed for this post.
Comments are closed.