War Poems
Boots
by Rudyard Kipling
INFANTRY COLUMNS
We're foot--slog--slog--slog--sloggin' over Africa --
Foot--foot--foot--foot--sloggin' over Africa --
(Boots--boots--boots--boots--movin' up an' down again!)
There's no discharge in the war!
Seven--six--eleven--five--nine-an'-tw enty mile to-day --
Four--eleven--seventeen--thirty-two the day before --
(Boots--boots--boots--boots--movin' up an' down again!)
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In Spite Of War
by Angela Morgan
In spite of war, in spite of death,
In spite of all man's sufferings,
Something within me laughs and sings
And I must praise with all my breath.
In spite of war, in spite of hate
Lilacs are blooming at my gate,
Tulips are tripping down the path
In spite of war, in spite of wrath.
"Courage!" the morning-glory saith;
"Rejoice!" the daisy murmureth,
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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.
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Man And Wife
by Robert Lowell
Tamed by Miltown, we lie on Mother's bed;
the rising sun in war paint dyes us red;
in broad daylight her gilded bed-posts shine,
abandoned, almost Dionysian.
At last the trees are green on Marlborough Street,
blossoms on our magnolia ignite
the morning with their murderous five day's white.
All night I've held your hand,
as if you had
a fourth time faced the kingdom of the mad -
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102. Parallels
by Kea Campbell
Light from two bulbs drapes over my bathroom mirror;
One filament severed and the other quite near.
Steam fogs my reflection from the uselessness of the shower.
A familiar feeling of my lungs: wrangled and floundered.
Sago by my sill, most placate, my mind.
A kind sight to your eye; you'd die for a bite.
White-potted for pleasantries, and loved to a tee.
Mutualistic co-habitants in a cycle of exchanging O2 for C.
......
Palatable unpalatability
by Tobias Winters
Are my thoughts too loud,
Does the breeze of my breath graze your skin in the heat of summer?
And my hands cling too tightly that your palms sweat,
And you count the seconds until I notice?
Do my words come out staggered and awkward-
Far apart and yet too close,
And do I linger far too long for hands held too stiff for an applause? [one that won’t occur]
Do you like me kinder, sweeter and quiet?
Am I preferred to lie in the heat of battle,
......
(A poem for dogs) Стихотворение для собак
by not sharing
Imagine streets so full of shit,
Heaps to knee thread, dive; in it.
What can you do with filth so vast?
And could you find a use for that?
Make bricks to stack a tower flat?
......
102. Parallels
by Kea Campbell
Light from two bulbs drapes over my bathroom mirror;
One filament severed and the other quite near.
Steam fogs my reflection from the uselessness of the shower.
A familiar feeling of my lungs: wrangled and floundered.
Sago by my sill, most placate, my mind.
A kind sight to your eye; you'd die for a bite.
White-potted for pleasantries, and loved to a tee.
Mutualistic co-habitants in a cycle of exchanging O2 for C.
......
A land without earthquakes
by Sanja Atanasovska
The swing on which I sit
is rising over a precipice.
I notice another death
and the grandeur
of all the evening chandeliers is breaking.
......
Країна без землетрусів
by Sanja Atanasovska
Гойдалки, на яких я сиджу,
хитаються над прірвою.
Помічаю ще одну смерть,
і велич розбивається
в усіх вечірніх люстрах.
Спалили вірменські церкви,
а в Україні окупанти
затягували чорні пов’язки
на очі людства.
......
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James Macpherson (31 poems about War)
27 October 1736 – 17 February 1796 / Ruthven, Kingussie, Badenoch, Inverness-Shire, Scotland -
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Franklin Pierce Adams (11 poems about War)
F.P.A.] (15 November 1881 – 23 March 1960 / Chicago, Illinois
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Slava P, aka Maximus Decimus Meridius (2 poems about War)
October 31st, 1970 - Kyiv, Ukraine and since 1992 - New Jersey, USA