Resurrecting this thread because a friend recommended an American war poet to me.

Here are a couple of poems by a US Poet called Brian Turner who released a book of poetry called “Here, Bullet” following his experiences in Iraq. He was an infantry team leader for a year in Iraq beginning November 2003, with the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division. Prior to that, he was deployed to Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1999-2000 with the 10th Mountain Division. His poetry is uncompromising and powerful.

The first one is called "Ashbah" which means 'Ghost'

Ashbah

The ghosts of American soldiers

wander the streets of Balad by night,

unsure of their way home, exhausted,

the desert wind blowing trash

down the narrow alleys as a voice

sounds from the minaret, a soulful call

reminding them how alone they are,

how lost. And the Iraqi dead,

they watch in silence from rooftops

as date palms line the shore in silhouette,

leaning toward Mecca when the dawn wind blows.

The second one is Here, Bullet:

Here, Bullet

If a body is what you want,
then here is bone and gristle and flesh.
Here is the clavicle-snapped wish,
the aorta’s opened valves, the leap
thought makes at the synaptic gap.
Here is the adrenaline rush you crave,
that inexorable flight, that insane puncture
into heat and blood. And I dare you to finish
what you’ve started. Because here, Bullet, here
is where I complete the word you bring hissing
through the air, here is where I moan the
barrel’s cold esophagus, triggering my tongue’s
explosives for the rifling I have inside of me,
each twist of the round spun deeper, because
here, Bullet, here is where the world ends,
every time.

Edited 29 Sep 08 - I received Here Bullet (bought on-line) and read it. It is very good. If you are a fan of war poetry you should add this to your collection.

Last edited by Bowmore_Assassin on Mon Sep 29, 2008 5:52 am; edited 1 time in total

All those who have lost their lives, you'll always be in our hearts. Forever and always. R.I.P.



When an angel is near, a soldier smiles,
As there is no more pain, just clouds by the miles.
A simple soldier who faced the beast,
Now with a smile as he's resting in peace.
Shaking hands with fellow friends,
Whilst God chats cheerfully, making amends.
He knows his family are left in tears,
But now he knows he's without fears.
A message sent by him through me,
He lived life proud and now he's free,
He loves his family and always will,
But he is free although his body is still.
You cry for him and beg and plea,
But do not cry for he can see,
How much that he means too,
But he's always watching, caring for you.
He's lived his time and served with pride,
And died for you all so there's no need to hide.
He's always watching, feeling at home,
But he's always with you, so don't feel alone.
I know it's hard to move on,
But it's only his living breath that's gone,
So when you're lonely, call his name,
He'll hear your call and reach for you,
Like a sunray through the rain.
And when you have people ask,
Feel his comfort, close and bask,
Turn to those who ask and say,
You wouldn't have it any other way.
Tell him you're proud and hold him close to your heart,
Then you'll never be alone or apart.
So look straight up and do not cry,
As he is always with you, in the sky.
He says one more thing to show his care,
"Love is a feeling; it's like me.......


It's there......"

F uck of Chubb you sub-human

go and boil your head and take that mawkish pish with you.

The Approach to Portsmouth by Sea....

First the Nab
Then the Warner
Blockhouse Fort
Then Sh**house Corner.

Anon.

Fuck me, Yeats really knew his stuff:

When You are Old

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

Wee little Flo
I love ye so
dressed up in your wee short nightie
when the moonlight flits across yer tits
Jesus Christ almighty

A good rule to bear in mind when pondering poetry.

Unless your name's Shakespeare or Kipling, don't consider writing any.

Oh ? And why is that then ?

Omar-Khayam can have a bash occasionally:

A jug of wine, a loaf of bread
and thou beside me
singing in the wilderness
and wilderness is paradise enow

If you cannot look at someone and think that - do not have children with them!

and

The moving finger writes
and, having writ, moves on.
Nor all thy piety or wit shall call it back a single line
Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.

The most lucid way of saying "Get over it" that I have ever heard

You see, all I get from that is blah blah blah gay.

I must be a vulgarian.

An ancient Pathaan verse:-

"There is a boy across the river with a bottom like a peach.
Alas. I cannot swim."

To quote Themanwho,

"You see, all I get from that is blah blah blah gay."

Each to their own but I don't class it as poetry and it's gay.

Blimey, three pages and not yet this one. Wilfred Owen at his angriest:

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! 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...
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 devils 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, -
My friend, you would not tell with such zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The Old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Written above the chancel arch at RMAS too...

My fave WWI poem is by Siegfried Sassoon - "The General".

"Good-morning; good-morning!" the General said
When we met him last week on our way to the line.
Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of ’em dead,
And we’re cursing his staff for incompetent swine.
"He’s a cheery old card," grunted Harry to Jack
As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack.

But he did for them both by his plan of attack.

This moves me every time:

---

For those who have served with the fighting quadruped:

Offside Leader

This is the wish as he told it to me, Of Gunner McPherson of Battery B.
I want no ribbon nor medals to wear, I’ve done my bit, and I’ve had my share
Of filth and fighting, blood and tears, And doubt and death in the last four years.
My team and I were among the first Contemptible few, when the war-clouds burst.

We sweated our gun through dust and heat, We hauled her back in the big retreat,
With weary horses and short of shell, Turning our backs on them, that was Hell!
That was at Mons, but we came back there, With shining horses and shells to spare,
And much I’ve suffered and much I’ve seen, From Mons to Mons on the miles between.
But I want no medals nor ribbons to wear, All I ask for my fighting share
Is this, that England should give to me, The offside leader of Battery B.

She was a round-ribbed, blaze-faced brown, Shy as a country girl in town,
Scared at the gangway, scared at the quay, Lathered in sweat at the sight of the sea.

But brave as a lion and strong as a bull, With the mud at the hub in an uphill pull.
She learned her job, as the best ones do, And we hadn’t been more than a week or two,
Before she would stand like a rooted oak, While bullets whined and the shrapnel broke,
And a mile of the ridges rocked in glee, As the shells went over from Battery B.

We swayed with the battle back and forth, Lugging the limbers south and north,
Round us the world was red with flame, As we gained or gave in the changing game.

But forwards or backwards, losses or gains, There were empty saddles and idle chains,
For death took some on the galloping track, And beckoned some from the bivouac,
Till at last were left but my mare and me, Of all who went over with Battery B.
My mates have gone and left me alone, Their horses are heaps of ash and bone.

Of all who went out in courage and speed, Was left but the little brown mare in the lead.
The little brown mare with a blaze on her face, Who would die of shame at a slack in her trace,

Who would swing the team at the least command, Who would charge a house at the clap of a hand,
Who would turn from a shell to nuzzle my knee, The offside leader of Battery B.
But I want no medals nor ribbons to wear, If I’ve done my bit, it was only my share,
If a man has his pride and the good of his cause, And the love of his home, they are unwritten laws.

But what of the horses who worked by our side? Who in faith as of children fought with us and died?
If I through it all have been true to my task, I ask for one honour, this only I ask.
The gift of one gunner, I know of a place, Where I’d leave a brown mare with a blaze on her face,
‘Neath low leafy lime trees, ‘mid cocksfoot and clover, To dream, with the dragon-flies glistening over.

DECEMBER 8th 1918

keith Douglas. (Lawrence Olivier narrated this poem on an episode of the World at War...it was abit of a choker).


Vergissmeinnicht ('Forget-me-not')
Elegy for an 88 Gunner


Three weeks gone and the combatants gone
returning over the nightmare ground
we found the place again, and found
the soldier sprawling in the sun.

The frowning barrel of his gun
overshadowing. As we came on
that day, he hit my tank with one
like the entry of a demon.


Look. Here in the gunpit spoil
the dishonoured picture of his girl
who has put: Steffi. Vergissmeinnicht
in a copybook gothic script.


We see him almost with content,
abased, and seeming to have paid
and mocked at by his own equipment
that's hard and good when he's decayed.


But she would weep to see today
how on his skin the swart flies move;
the dust upon the paper eye
and the burst stomach like a cave.


For here the lover and killer are mingled
who had one body and one heart.
And death who had the soldier singled
has done the lover mortal hurt.



Keith Douglas

Poetry of a sort, a song that never fails to move me.

The Green Fields of France


Well how-do-you-do young Wille McBride,
D’yer mind if I sit here down by your graveside?
And rest for a while in the warm summer sun,
I’ve been walking all day and I’m nearly done.

I see by your gravestone you were only nineteen
When you joined The Great Fallen in 1916.
I hope you died well and I hope you died clean,
But young Willie McBride was it slow and obscene?

Do they beat the drums slowly?
Do they play the fife lowly?
Did they sound The Dead March as they lowered you down?
Did the band play the Last Post in chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers Of The Forest?

Did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind?
In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined?
Although you died back in 1916, In that faithful heart are you forever nineteen?

Or are you a stranger without even a name
Enclosed then forever behind the glass frame?
In an old photograph torn, battered, and stained,
And faded to yellow in a brown and dark frame.

Do they beat the drums slowly?
Do they play the fife lowly?
Did they sound The Dead March as they lowered you down?
Did the band play the Last Post in chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers Of The Forest?

The sun now it shines on the green fields of France
There’s a warm summer breeze, and the red poppies dance,
And look how the sun shines from under the clouds,
There’s no gas, no barbed wire, there’s no gun firing now.

But here in this grave yard it’s still No-man’s-Land,
The countless white crosses stand mute in the sand.
To man’s blind indifference to his fellow man
To a whole generation that were butchered and damned.

Do they beat the drums slowly?
Do they play the fife lovely?
Did they sound The Dead March as they lowered you down?
Did the band play the Last Post? And of course
Did the pipes play the Flowers Of The Forest?

Now young Willie McBride I can’t help wonder why
Do those who lie Know why did they die.
And did they believe when they answered the call?
Did they really believe that this war would end wars?

Well the sorrow and the suffering, the glory the pain,
The killing and dying were all done in vain.
But young Willie McBride it done happened again,
And again and again, and again and again.

Do they beat the drums slowly?
Do they play the fife lovely?
Did they sound The Dead March as they lowered you down?
Did the band play the Last Post? And of course
Did the pipes play the Flowers Of The Forest?

Do they beat the drums slowly?
Do they play the fife lovely?
Did they sound The Dead March as they lowered you down?
Did the band play the Last Post? And of course
Did the pipes play the Flowers Of The Forest?

What a great thread!
Here's one that I've always liked- It was written by a guy called Herbert Cadett, I think about 1905. I was hoping to find out something about him on the web (and to save typing this out!) but there's precious little info about him.

War

Private Smith of the Royals; the veldt and a slate-black sky,
Hillocks of mud, brick-red with blood, and a prayer-half curse-to die.
A lung and a Mauser bullet; pink froth and a half-choked cry.

Private Smith of the Royals; a torrent of freezing rain;
A hail of frost on a life half lost; despair and a grinding pain.
And the drip-drip-drip of the Heavens to wash out the brand of Cain

Private Smith of the Royals; self-sounding his funeral knell;
A burning throat that each grasping note scrapes raw like broken shell.
A thirst like a red hot iron and a tongue like a patch of Hell.

Private Smith of the Royals; the blush of a dawning day;
The fading mist that the sun has kissed-and over the hills away
The blest Red Cross like an angel on the trail of the men who slay.

But Private Smith of the Royals gazed up at the soft blue sky-
The rose-tinged morn like a babe new born and the sweet songed
birds on high-
With a fleck of red on his pallid lip and a film of white on
his eye.

Heres one I found in an old war poetry book I keep in the downstairs loo......

from 'The Song of Tiadatha'.

In the mighty British Army
Rumour is the only issue
That arrives at units larger
Than it leaves the Base Supply Park.
Up it comes without an indent
(Possibly in lieu of lime-juice)
Heaven only knows its maker;
Like a toy balloon it swells up,
Gently growing big and bigger;
At the Dump the Mr Know-Alls
Have a blow to make it fatter,
Pass it on to the Transport drivers,
Who in their turn puff their hardest,
Make it change its shape a little
Hand it over with the rations
Then the minions of the Q.M.
Do their little bit to help it,
After which the Sergeant-Major
Takes a lusty breath to fix it,
Sends it up into the trenches
As a full-blown army rumour.

Penned in 1919, still sound familiar though!