Memory Poems
Exposure
by Wilfred Owen
I
1 Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knife us ...
2 Wearied we keep awake because the night is silent ...
3 Low drooping flares confuse our memory of the salient ...
4 Worried by silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous,
5 But nothing happens.
6 Watching, we hear the mad gusts tugging on the wire.
7 Like twitching agonies of men among its brambles.
......
After The Funeral (In Memory Of Ann Jones)
by Dylan Thomas
After the funeral, mule praises, brays,
Windshake of sailshaped ears, muffle-toed tap
Tap happily of one peg in the thick
Grave's foot, blinds down the lids, the teeth in black,
The spittled eyes, the salt ponds in the sleeves,
Morning smack of the spade that wakes up sleep,
Shakes a desolate boy who slits his throat
In the dark of the coffin and sheds dry leaves,
That breaks one bone to light with a judgment clout'
After the feast of tear-stuffed time and thistles
......
War Is Never Over
by Cecil L. Harrison
War is never over
Thought the treaties may be signed
The memories of the battles
Are forever in our minds
War is never over
So when you welcome heroes home
Remember in their minds they hold
Memories known to them alone
......
Her Hair
by Charles Baudelaire
O fleece, that down the neck waves to the nape!
O curls! O perfume nonchalant and rare!
O ecstasy! To fill this alcove shape
With memories that in these tresses sleep,
I would shake them like penions in the air!
Languorous Asia, burning Africa,
And a far world, defunct almost, absent,
Within your aromatic forest stay!
As other souls on music drift away,
......
In The Droving Days
by Banjo Paterson
"Only a pound," said the auctioneer,
"Only a pound; and I'm standing here
Selling this animal, gain or loss --
Only a pound for the drover's horse?
One of the sort that was ne'er afraid,
One of the boys of the Old Brigade;
Thoroughly honest and game, I'll swear,
Only a little the worse for wear;
Plenty as bad to be seen in town,
Give me a bid and I'll knock him down;
......
Echoes of a Rose
by Drake Son
Her winds still whisper names forgotten,
And her rivers now hum hymns of home’s embrace.
Chimney tops rise, silent like prayers unanswered,
And cracked cobbles mutter stories of long ago.
Still held together by time’s drystone hands,
The home we once knew, now overthrown.
Now, not a place of darkness and gloom,
As strangers still believe.
Nor a land of milky tea-stained dreams,
......
In Memory of Late Patrick William O'Connor
by Kinsley Lee
He wrote a poem in the strange land at May,
And he fell as a petal the very next spring day.
He's too young to die for the strange people,
But freedom world, he's the eternal star of sample
Alas, he left a wife and kids at the home,
But leaving a poem as a freedom fighter on the tome
He'd passed one day after, writing which was titled "Korea",
And now he's lying under the hill of the althea.
......
In Memory of Late Captain Robert Lee Timmons
by Kinsley Lee
Smoke, gunfire, cannon’re thundering,
To the front fortress, wave attacking!
The assailants, The People’s Army, the strongest enemy,
They’re former Red Chinese Eight Route-Army,
The One hundred sixty sixth division,
Was changing uniform to sixth division.
They thrusted the Masan for gaining road
To Busan. The mountain’s an important node.
The division risked their life for defending,
......
"The echo of a forgotten name."
by Dylan Wu Rong
The damp air around me smell infuriating,
metallic like the roscoe in my palms,
imprinting every edge and crease,
like a tattoo, but straight to my brain.
Its pathetic- I realize as I see myself,
selfishly wallowing in the sorrow,
jealous of the joy the rest hold close,
am I deserving of the self-pity?
The wind howls out to the seven nations,
resonating painfully clear- those battle cries,
......
"The river remembers everything."
by Dylan Wu Rong
And I was told- flow like water,
like the water in the river.
And I flowed, every day,
embodying myself as the river I saw,
crashing against the rocks of words,
falling from the peaks of disappointments,
swirling around the curves of truth,
I flowed like the water in the river,
never stopping, not once.
Yet now- I am asked to stay still,
......
