A Friend Killed in the War -- Anthony Hecht

Night, the fat serpent, slipped among the plants,

Intent upon the apples of his eyes;

A heavy bandoleer hung like a prize

Around his neck, and tropical red ants

Mounted his body, and he heard advance,

Little by little, the thin female cries

Of mortar shells. He thought of Paradise.

Such is the vision that extremity grants.

In the clean brightness of magnesium

Flares, there were seven angels by a tree.

Their hair flashed diamonds, and they made him doubt

They were not really from Elysium.

And his flesh opened like a peony,

Red at the heart, white petals furling out.

 

 

 

 

 

The Embankment -- T.E. Hulme (1909)

"On 28 September 1917, four days after his thirty-fourth birthday, Hulme suffered a direct hit from a large shell which literally blew him to pieces. Apparently absorbed in some thought of his own he had failed to hear it coming and remained standing while those around threw themselves flat on the ground. What was left of him was buried in the Military Cemetery at Koksijde, West-Vlaanderen, in Belgium." [Ferguson, R. (2002). The Short Sharp Life of T. E. Hulme. London: Allen Lane, p. 270.]

(The fantasia of a fallen gentleman on a cold, bitter night.)

 

Once, in finesse of fiddles found I ecstasy,

In the flash of gold heels on the hard pavement.

Now see I

That warmth’s the very stuff of poesy.

Oh, God, make small

The old star-eaten blanket of the sky,

That I may fold it round me and in comfort lie.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Gift -- Louise Glück (1976)

Dog Outside Door -- Fritz Scholder

Lord, you may not recognize me
speaking for someone else.
I have a son. He is
so little, so ignorant.
He likes to stand
at the screen door, calling
oggie, oggie, entering
language, and sometimes
a dog will stop and come up
the walk, perhaps
accidentally. May he believe
this is not an accident.
At the screen
welcoming each beast
in love’s name, Your emissary.

 

In Parenthesis -- David Jones (1937)

The Artist, David Jones (1927)

New Statesman

"[Painter, poet and World War I veteran David] Jones often wrote about “the Break”, the cultural moment somewhere around the beginning of modernity when the European world-view shifted decisively. Instead of a world where things were unique but linked by an unimaginable density of connection and cross-reference, we had created one in which things were unconnected but endlessly repeatable and where everything could be exchanged in the market for an agreed equivalent: above all, for money. Jones saw his work – both as a visual artist and as a poet – as a sustained protest against the Break and an effort to show that the older picture could, after all, be brought to life.

Born in 1895, he had family roots that helped to shape his interests from the beginning. His mother’s father had been a London shipwright and his father’s origins were in North Wales. Both Wales and London kept a central place in his imagination throughout his life. It was not surprising that when the First World War broke out, he enlisted in the 1st London Welsh Battalion of the Royal Welch Fusiliers. His 1937 masterpiece, the astonishing book-length poem In Parenthesis, describes the experience of foot soldiers in the First World War, revisiting his own experiences up to and including the disastrous engagement at Mametz Wood in July 1916. Jones was wounded in the leg during the battle (a wound described by the medical orderly as “a beautiful blighty” – serious enough to get him off the front line, yet not life-threatening). But he was back in the trenches in a matter of months.

The traumas of war stayed with him to the end. In Parenthesis, which he struggled with painfully over many years, is one of the most unsparing accounts of the life of infantry soldiers in the trenches and of the horrors of the Somme; but at the same time it meditates on any number of connections – echoes of conflict, from Troy to the struggles of the British against the Saxons in the 6th century to Malory’s Arthurian narratives, and, woven through it all, the founding act of bloodshed that is the death of Christ. Jones was raised an Anglican, but by the time he wrote In Parenthesis he was a Catholic, and believed passionately that the Church’s sacramental theology was what made sense of a world of symbolic connection, where nothing existed as an atom but where everything enriched the perception of everything else. For him, all art rested on the conviction that God had made a world of endless cross-reference, and that humanity was most fully human when it acknowledged this. Art was humanity doing what only humanity could do."

Through a Glass, Darkly -- GEN George S. Patton, Jr.

Through the travail of the ages,
Midst the pomp and toil of war,
Have I fought and strove and perished
Countless times upon this star.

In the form of many people
In all panoplies of time
Have I seen the luring vision
Of the Victory Maid, sublime.

I have battled for fresh mammoth,
I have warred for pastures new,
I have listed to the whispers
When the race trek instinct grew.

I have known the call to battle
In each changeless changing shape
From the high souled voice of conscience
To the beastly lust for rape.

I have sinned and I have suffered,
Played the hero and the knave;
Fought for belly, shame, or country,
And for each have found a grave.

I cannot name my battles
For the visions are not clear,
Yet, I see the twisted faces
And I feel the rending spear.

Perhaps I stabbed our Savior
In His sacred helpless side.
Yet, I've called His name in blessing
When after times I died.

In the dimness of the shadows
Where we hairy heathens warred,
I can taste in thought the lifeblood;
We used teeth before the sword.

While in later clearer vision
I can sense the coppery sweat,
Feel the pikes grow wet and slippery
When our Phalanx, Cyrus met.

Hear the rattle of the harness
Where the Persian darts bounced clear,
See their chariots wheel in panic
From the Hoplite's leveled spear.

See the goal grow monthly longer,
Reaching for the walls of Tyre.
Hear the crash of tons of granite,
Smell the quenchless eastern fire.

Still more clearly as a Roman,
Can I see the Legion close,
As our third rank moved in forward
And the short sword found our foes.

Once again I feel the anguish
Of that blistering treeless plain
When the Parthian showered death bolts,
And our discipline was in vain.

I remember all the suffering
Of those arrows in my neck.
Yet, I stabbed a grinning savage
As I died upon my back.

Once again I smell the heat sparks
When my Flemish plate gave way
And the lance ripped through my entrails
As on Crecy's field I lay.

In the windless, blinding stillness
Of the glittering tropic sea
I can see the bubbles rising
Where we set the captives free.

Midst the spume of half a tempest
I have heard the bulwarks go
When the crashing, point blank round shot
Sent destruction to our foe.

I have fought with gun and cutlass
On the red and slippery deck
With all Hell aflame within me
And a rope around my neck.

And still later as a General
Have I galloped with Murat
When we laughed at death and numbers
Trusting in the Emperor's Star.

Till at last our star faded,
And we shouted to our doom
Where the sunken road of Ohein
Closed us in it's quivering gloom.

So but now with Tanks a'clatter
Have I waddled on the foe
Belching death at twenty paces,
By the star shell's ghastly glow.

So as through a glass, and darkly
The age long strife I see
Where I fought in many guises,
Many names, but always me.

And I see not in my blindness
What the objects were I wrought,
But as God rules o'er our bickerings
It was through His will I fought.

So forever in the future,
Shall I battle as of yore,
Dying to be born a fighter,
But to die again, once more.

For a Young Dancer on St. Patrick's Day -- A.E. Stallings (2009)

At six, her stance is 
Like a professional’s—she waits her cue 
Intensely and with no expression, 
The youngest in the troupe of girls 
Costumed alike in skirts that flare like bells 
Embroidered with designs— 
Abstracted tangled animals and geometric vines— 
Drawn from the Book of Kells, 
Hair done up in headdresses of artificial curls 
To bounce in time to lively Irish dances, 

But it’s the music of a Shaker hymn 
When she takes her place 
Alone on the plywood stage, candescent with such fierce 
And concentrated joy 
As no smile will pierce 
And no trivial laughter can alloy, 
Each swift and nimble limb 
Inhabiting its quickness without haste, 
As if she had only herself to please. 
All gazes 

Fix on her, not because, 
Or not only because, she is a lovely, solemn elf, 
Not that her eyes 
Are just the shade of blue 
 Patterned on antique Delft 
Or that cliché of cloudless skies 
(Though bored through with the blackness of unfathomable Space), 
And it is not her fearsome self-possession 
Around her, tightly furled, 

Rather the possession of her self 
By a vaster power 
Whose presence in this low room till this hour 
Had been unknown to us 
And momently amazes, 
As the wide wind that breathes upon the world 
Enlists the tossing of high-masted trees, 
The bowing of the grass, 
The shiver of a roadside flower, 
So we may see it pass.

Mass at Dawn -- Roy Campbell (1901-1957)

I dropped my sail and dried my dripping seines
Where the white quay is chequered by cool planes
In whose great branches, always out of sight,
The nightingales are singing day and night.
Though all was grey beneath the moon’s grey beam,
My boat in her new paint shone like a bride,
And silver in my baskets shone the bream:
My arms were tired and I was heavy-eyed,
But when with food and drink, at morning-light,
The children met me at the water-side,
Never was wine so red or bread so white.

Walking Wounded -- Vernon Scannell (1965)

A mammoth morning moved grey flanks and groaned.
In the rusty hedges pale rags of mist hung;
The gruel of mud and leaves in the mauled lane
Smelled sweet, like blood. Birds had died or flown,
Their green and silent attics sprouting now
With branches of leafed steel, hiding round eyes
And ripe grenades ready to drop and burst.
In the ditch at the cross-roads the fallen rider lay
Hugging his dead machine and did nor stir
At crunch of mortar, tantrum of a Bren
Answering a Spandau’s manic jabber.
Then into sight the ambulances came,
Stumbling and churning past the broken farm,
The amputated sign-post and smashed trees,
Slow wagonloads of bandaged cries, square trucks
That rolled on ominous wheels, vehicles
Made mythopoeic by their mortal freight
And crimson crosses on the dirty white.
This grave procession passed, though, for a while,
The grinding of their engines could be heard,
A dark noise on the pallor of the morning,
Dark as dried blood; and the it faded, died.
The road was empty, bit it seemed to wait -
Like a stage which knows the cast is in the wings -
Wait for a different traffic to appear.
The mist still hung in snags from dripping thorns;
Absent-minded guns still sighed and thumped.
And then they came, the walking wounded,
Straggling the road like convicts loosely chained,
Dragging at ankles exhaustion and despair.
Their heads were weighted down by last night’s lead,
And eyes still drank the dark. They trailed the night
Along the morning road. Some limped on sticks;
Others wore rough dressings, splints and slings;
A few had turbanned heads, the dirty cloth
Brown-badged with blood. A humble brotherhood,
Not one was suffering from a lethal hurt,
They were not magnified by noble wounds,
There was no splendour in that company.
And yet, remembering after eighteen years,
In the heart’s throat a sour sadness stirs;
Imagination pauses and returns
To see them walking still, but multiplied
In thousands now. And when heroic corpses
Turn slowly in their decorated sleep
And every ambulance has disappeared
The walking wounded still trudge down that lane,
And when recalled they must bear arms again.

Casualty -- Mental Ward -- Vernon Scannell (1922-2007)

Something has gone wrong inside my head.
The sappers have left mines and wire behind,
I hold long conversations with the dead.

I do not always know what has been said;
The rhythms, not the words, stay in my mind;
Something has gone wrong inside my head.

Not just the sky but grass and trees are red,
The flares and tracers—or I’m colour-blind;
I hold long conversations with the dead.

Their presence comforts and sustains like bread;
When they don’t come its hard to be resigned;
Something has gone wrong inside my head.

They know about the snipers that I dread
And how the world is booby-trapped and mined;
I hold long conversations with the dead;

As all eyes close, they gather round my bed
And whisper consolation. When I find
Something has gone wrong inside my head
I hold long conversations with the dead.

Anger at Things that Happen -- unknown

Anger at things that happen shows small wit;
For all our wrath concerns them not a bit.

-- unknown ancient poet cited in Plutarch

Wall, Cave, and Pillar Statements, after Asôka -- Alan Dugan (2001)

In order to perfect all readers

the statements should be carved

on rock walls, on cave walls,

and on the side of pillars so

the charm of their instruction can

affect the mountain climbers near

the cliffs, the plainsmen near

the pillars, and the city people near

the caves they go to on vacations.

 

The statements should, and in a fair

script, spell out the right text and gloss

of the Philosopher’s jocular remark. Text:

“Honesty is the best policy.” Gloss:

“He means not ‘best’ but ‘policy,’

(this is the joke of it) whereas in fact

          Honesty is Honesty, Best

          is Best, and Policy is Policy,

          the three terms being not

          related, but here loosely allied.

What is more important is that ‘is’

is, but the rocklike truth of the text

resides in the ‘the’. The ‘the’ is The.

          By this means the amusing sage

          has raised or caused to be raised

          the triple standard in stone:

the single is too simple for life,

the double is mere degrading hypocrisy,

but the third combines the first two

in a possible way, and contributes

something unsayable of its own:

this is the pit, nut, seed, or stone

of the fruit when the fruit has been

digested:

          It is good to do good for the wrong

          reason, better to do good for the good

          reason, and best of all to do good

          good: i.e. when the doer and doee

          and whatever passes between them

          are beyond all words like ‘grace’

          or ‘anagogic insight,’ or definitions like

          ‘particular instance of a hoped-at-law,’

and which the rocks alone can convey.

This is the real reason for the rock walls,

the cave walls and pillars, and not the base

desires for permanence and display

that the teacher’s conceit suggests.”

 

          That is the end of the statements, but,

          in order to go on a way after the end

          so as to make up for having begun

          after the beginning, and thus to come around

          to it in order to include the whole thing,

add: “In some places the poignant slogan,

‘Morality is a bad joke like everything else,’

may be written or not, granted that space

exists for the vulgar remarks, the dates,

initials and hearts of lovers, and all

other graffiti of the prisoners of this world.”

Poem 1260 -- Emily Dickinson

 

Because that you are going
And never coming back
And I, however absolute
May overlook your Track -

Because that Death is final,
However first it be
This instant be suspended
Above Mortality -

Significance that each has lived
The other to detect
Discovery not God himself
Could now annihilate

Eternity, Presumption
The instant I perceive
That you, who were Existence
Yourself forgot to live -


The "Life that is" will then have been
A thing I never knew -
As Paradise fictitious
Until the Realm of you -

The "Life that is to be," to me,
A Residence too plain
Unless in my Redeemer's Face
I recognize your own -

Of Immortality who doubts
He may exchange with me
Curtailed by your obscuring Face
Of everything but He -

Of Heaven and Hen I also yield
The Right to reprehend
To whoso would commute this Face
For his less priceless Friend.

If "God is Love" as he admits
We think that he must be
Because he is a "jealous God"
He tells us certainly

If "All is possible with" him
As he besides concedes
He will refund us finally
Our confiscated Gods-

The Author's Abstract of Melancholy -- Robert Burton (1638)

THE AUTHOR'S ABSTRACT OF MELANCHOLY, Διαλογῶς

When I go musing all alone

Thinking of divers things fore-known.

When I build castles in the air,

Void of sorrow and void of fear,

Pleasing myself with phantasms sweet,

Methinks the time runs very fleet.

All my joys to this are folly,

Naught so sweet as melancholy.

When I lie waking all alone,

Recounting what I have ill done,

My thoughts on me then tyrannise,

Fear and sorrow me surprise,

Whether I tarry still or go,

Methinks the time moves very slow.

All my griefs to this are jolly,

Naught so mad as melancholy.

When to myself I act and smile,

With pleasing thoughts the time beguile,

By a brook side or wood so green,

Unheard, unsought for, or unseen,

A thousand pleasures do me bless,

And crown my soul with happiness.

All my joys besides are folly,

None so sweet as melancholy.

When I lie, sit, or walk alone,

I sigh, I grieve, making great moan,

In a dark grove, or irksome den,

With discontents and Furies then,

A thousand miseries at once

Mine heavy heart and soul ensconce,

All my griefs to this are jolly,

None so sour as melancholy.

Methinks I hear, methinks I see,

Sweet music, wondrous melody,

Towns, palaces, and cities fine;

Here now, then there; the world is mine,

Rare beauties, gallant ladies shine,

Whate'er is lovely or divine.

All other joys to this are folly,

None so sweet as melancholy.

Methinks I hear, methinks I see

Ghosts, goblins, fiends; my phantasy

Presents a thousand ugly shapes,

Headless bears, black men, and apes,

Doleful outcries, and fearful sights,

My sad and dismal soul affrights.

All my griefs to this are jolly,

None so damn'd as melancholy.

Methinks I court, methinks I kiss,

Methinks I now embrace my mistress.

O blessed days, O sweet content,

In Paradise my time is spent.

Such thoughts may still my fancy move,

So may I ever be in love.

All my joys to this are folly,

Naught so sweet as melancholy.

When I recount love's many frights,

My sighs and tears, my waking nights,

My jealous fits; O mine hard fate

I now repent, but 'tis too late.

No torment is so bad as love,

So bitter to my soul can prove.

All my griefs to this are jolly,

Naught so harsh as melancholy.

Friends and companions get you gone,

'Tis my desire to be alone;

Ne'er well but when my thoughts and I

Do domineer in privacy.

No Gem, no treasure like to this,

'Tis my delight, my crown, my bliss.

All my joys to this are folly,

Naught so sweet as melancholy.

'Tis my sole plague to be alone,

I am a beast, a monster grown,

I will no light nor company,

I find it now my misery.

The scene is turn'd, my joys are gone,

Fear, discontent, and sorrows come.

All my griefs to this are jolly,

Naught so fierce as melancholy.

I'll not change life with any king,

I ravisht am: can the world bring

More joy, than still to laugh and smile,

In pleasant toys time to beguile?

Do not, O do not trouble me,

So sweet content I feel and see.

All my joys to this are folly,

None so divine as melancholy.

I'll change my state with any wretch,

Thou canst from gaol or dunghill fetch;

My pain's past cure, another hell,

I may not in this torment dwell!

Now desperate I hate my life,

Lend me a halter or a knife;

All my griefs to this are jolly,

Naught so damn'd as melancholy.