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Poems From The Front

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shadowen On March 22, 2024




Bunyip Bend, Australia
#16New Post! Nov 15, 2017 @ 06:26:00
When you send a lad away
To a foreign hot land
To fight in a war he doesn’t understand
When he comes back
He brings more than just a tan

He’s probably not ok
He’s probably not all right
He’s probably in a dark place
Whether it’s day or night

Governments and Media
With their pack of lies
Will never tell the truth
But try to convince you otherwise

It feels like my eyes
Have been stretched wide open
Now and then
I have trouble coping

Images of memories
Imprinted on my mind
The boy they knew before
Is what they’ll never find

- Alex Cockers
Jennifer1984 On July 20, 2022
Returner and proud





Penzance, United Kingdom
#17New Post! Nov 15, 2017 @ 19:05:05
The Soldiers Came by John Agard

The soldiers came
and dropped their bombs.
The soldiers didn't take long
to bring the forest down.

With the forest gone
the birds are gone
With the birds gone
who will sing their song?

But the soldiers forgot
to take the forest
out of the people's hearts.
The soldiers forgot
to take the birds
out of the people's dreams.
And in the people's dreams
the birds still sing their song.

Now the children
are planting seedlings
to help the forest grow again.
They eat a simple meal of soft rice
wrapped in banana leaf.
And the land welcomes their smiling
like a shower of rain.


Now, THIS is poetry.

The description of soldiers simply arriving and destroying a forest is self-explanatory. There is no particular syllable pattern, nor is there any rhyme to the verse. It simply conveys one single thought: soldiers brought bombs with them and destroyed a forest. The facts are conveyed simply as facts, without any kind of emotion entering the verse. Even the first line and the title — The Soldiers Came — doesn’t explain why or from where the soldiers came, or even who they are — just that they are soldiers, and they are there.

At face value, the poem is a little strange; — it implies that destroying the forest was the intention of the soldiers. Perhaps the “forest” is a home, or the “bomb” is a metaphor for warfare in general, destroying the planet slowly and in no great amount of time. Whatever the intended, deeper meaning of the verse, it is easy to see that the narrator is observing a destructive war that has, very quickly, caused significant damage to something very important.

The second verse follows the same path as the first, dropping unhappy facts in quick and abrupt fashion, but letting the reader draw their own conclusions. There is little adherence to the rules of poetry, but the narrator explains the consequences of the soldiers’ actions. The forest is gone which means the birds are gone, having been deprived of their habitat. Without birds, of course, there can be no birdsongs, and this is portrayed as a loss of great significance. Some may not care about birdsong but as an abstract concept, the idea of an innocent creature with the capacity to sing is a strong metaphor for peace and in this context, the loss of the birdsong explains what is brutally destroyed in times of war.

The narrator then says that although the forest is destroyed, the memory of the forest remains with the surviving generation. “The soldiers forgot” is a repeated theme of the third verse. A soldier can destroy a forest, but cannot destroy a memory. This is an important element of the poem that explains that physical destruction and emotional damage, while linked, are not the same thing. Losing the forest is an act of blind destruction that can be recovered from. Forests can be replanted, That idea of a silver lining is a welcome addition to this verse that sets it apart from the previous two. In dreams and in hearts, there is still a forest, and there is still a song. This speaks to the idea that even war cannot destroy the beauty of life that it opposes.

Now, as the first line of the final verse suggests, the soldiers are gone, and the forest is being regrown from seed. The image associated with this verse, of children smiling and planting trees, is a heartwarming image of significant contrast to the initial “The soldiers came / and dropped their bombs.” These children are described as welcoming simplicity and working hard to return beauty to life.

One theme that resonates strongly throughout is the idea of looking forward. The positive imagery that persists through the latter half of the poem excludes the idea of vengeance or anger being created by the destruction of the forest. The people who survived its destruction work towards its repair instead of seeking further destruction elsewhere. They are happy with their simple means, and find birdsongs in their fondest dreams and in the smiles of their children. They adapt and rebuild. The idea that the aftermath of war does not have to be bitter, brutal, and enraging is a difficult one for most people to accept but it is portrayed here with touching simplicity and stunning beauty, as something to aspire to, and, perhaps most importantly of all, as something that is possible itself.
shadowen On March 22, 2024




Bunyip Bend, Australia
#18New Post! Nov 16, 2017 @ 03:34:42
This thread is simply to allow people (if they so desire) to POST POEMS WRITTEN BY SERVICEMEN...end of.
shadowen On March 22, 2024




Bunyip Bend, Australia
#19New Post! Nov 16, 2017 @ 07:42:39
In prison cell I sadly sit,
A dammed crestfallen chappie,
And own to you I feel a bit--
A little bit—unhappy.

It really ain’t the place nor time
To reel off rhyming diction ;
But yet we’ll write a final rhyme
While waiting crucifixion.

No matter what end they decide
Quick-lime? or boiling oil? sir
We’ll do our best when crucified
To finish off in style, sir !

But we bequeath a parting tip
For sound advice of such men
Who come across in transport ship
To polish off the Dutchmen.

If you encounter any Boers
You really must not loot ‘em,
And, if you wish to leave these shores,
For pity’s sake, don’t shoot ‘em.

And if you’d earn a D.S.O.,
Why every British sinner
Should know the proper way to go
Is: Ask the Boer to dinner.

Let’s toss a bumper down our throat
Before we pass to heaven,
And toast: “The trim-set petticoat
We leave behind in Devon.”

- The Breaker
shadowen On March 22, 2024




Bunyip Bend, Australia
#20New Post! Nov 16, 2017 @ 08:01:52
On Returning to the Front after Leave

Apart sweet women (for whom Heaven be blessed),
Comrades, you cannot think how thin and blue
Look the leftovers of mankind that rest,
Now that the cream has been skimmed off in you.
War has its horrors, but has this of good—
That its sure processes sort out and bind
Brave hearts in one intrepid brotherhood
And leave the shams and imbeciles behind.
Now turn we joyful to the great attacks,
Not only that we face in a fair field
Our valiant foe and all his deadly tools,
But also that we turn disdainful backs
On that poor world we scorn yet die to shield—
That world of cowards, hypocrites, and fools.

- Alan Seeger
Eaglebauer On July 23, 2019
Moderator
Deleted



Saint Louis, Missouri
#21New Post! Nov 16, 2017 @ 12:51:51
Per the OP's request, please keep posts on topic in this thread. Thanks in advance.
Jennifer1984 On July 20, 2022
Returner and proud





Penzance, United Kingdom
#22New Post! Nov 17, 2017 @ 01:19:56
Thank you for that, Eagle. I appreciate your impartiality and of course, I am sure you will likewise send warning notificiations to anybody may present counter comments to the anti-war poetry thread I intend to start and have plenty of offerings to make to.

We wouldn't want there to be an imbalance of opinion, now would we..?
shadowen On March 22, 2024




Bunyip Bend, Australia
#23New Post! Nov 17, 2017 @ 04:16:07
In Memoriam

So you were David’s father,
And he was your only son,
And the new-cut peats are rotting
And the work is left undone,
Because of an old man weeping,
Just an old man in pain,
For David, his son David,
That will not come again.

Oh, the letters he wrote you,
And I can see them still,
Not a word of the fighting,
But just the sheep on the hill
And how you should get the crops in
Ere the year get stormier,
And the Bosches have got his body,
And I was his officer.

You were only David’s father,
But I had fifty sons
When we went up in the evening
Under the arch of the guns,
And we came back at twilight -
O God! I heard them call
To me for help and pity
That could not help at all.

Oh, never will I forget you,
My men that trusted me,
More my sons than your fathers’,
For they could only see
The little helpless babies
And the young men in their pride.
They could not see you dying,
And hold you while you died.

Happy and young and gallant,
They saw their first-born go,
But not the strong limbs broken
And the beautiful men brought low,
The piteous writhing bodies,
They screamed “Don’t leave me, sir”,
For they were only your fathers
But I was your officer

- Ewart Alan Mackintosh
shadowen On March 22, 2024




Bunyip Bend, Australia
#24New Post! Nov 17, 2017 @ 04:19:44
A Soldier’s Cemetery

Behind that long and lonely trenched line
To which men come and go, where brave men die,
There is a yet unmarked and unknown shrine,
A broken plot, a soldier’s cemetery.

There lie the flower of youth, the men who scorn’d
To live (so died) when languished Liberty:
Across their graves flowerless and unadorned
Still scream the shells of each artillery.

When war shall cease this lonely unknown spot
Of many a pilgrimage will be the end,
And flowers will shine in this now barren plot
And fame upon it through the years descend:
But many a heart upon each simple cross
Will hang the grief, the memory of its loss.

- John William Streets
Eaglebauer On July 23, 2019
Moderator
Deleted



Saint Louis, Missouri
#25New Post! Nov 17, 2017 @ 13:41:58
@Jennifer1984 Said

Thank you for that, Eagle. I appreciate your impartiality and of course, I am sure you will likewise send warning notificiations to anybody may present counter comments to the anti-war poetry thread I intend to start and have plenty of offerings to make to.

We wouldn't want there to be an imbalance of opinion, now would we..?


Greetings, Jennifer.

I was responding due to a private message sent to me by the OP politely requesting that I do so. I will add for the sake of civility that he did not speak ill of you in that message, he simply asked that I help keep his thread on topic.

Yes, if you start a thread on any subject at all and ask me to intervene for the same reasons, I absolutely will be fully impartial and give you the benefit of the same response on your behalf, as that would be the correct channel for you to use if you had an issue with another poster constantly posting off topic comments in practically every thread you create as you seem to do with his. So long as the thread does not violate TOS, I will willingly give any protection for it asked for by you. I promise you.

I guarantee 100% that you will receive the same assistance from me as a moderator should that happen.

I also would direct you to TOS 3.23 which says it is a violation to "(r)epeatedly and publicly call into question the decisions of The Forum Site moderators and administrators."

The Terms of Service are linked at the bottom of every page if you need to reference them.

Further discussion in this thread that is off topic will result in a ban.

Thanks and have a good day.
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