Contemporary War Poems
Icarus Allsorts
A little bit of heaven fell
From out the sky one day
It landed in the ocean
Not so very far away
The general at the radar screen
Rubbed his hands in glee
And grinning pressed the button
That started World War Three
From every corner of the earth
Bombs began to fly
There were even missile jams
No traffic lights in the sky
In the time it takes to blow your nose
The people fell, the mushrooms rose.
'House!' cried the fat lady
As the bingohall moved to various parts of the town
'Raus!' cried the German butcher
as his shop came tumbling down
Phillip was in the counting house
Counting out his money
The Queen was in the parlour
Eating bread and honey
When through the window
Flew a bomb
And made them go all funny
In the time it takes to draw a breath
Or eat a toadstool, instant death
The rich
Huddled outside the doors of their fallout shelters
Like drunken carol singers
The poor
Clutching shattered televisions
And at last week's editions of T.V Times
(but the very last)
Civil defence volunteers
With their tin hats in one hand
And their heads in the other
C.N.D supporters
Their ban the bomb badges beginning to rust
Have scrawled 'I told you so' in the dust
A little bit of heaven fell
From out of the sky one day
It landed in Vermont
North-eastern USA
The general at the radar screen
He should have got the sack
But that wouldn't bring
Three thousand million, seven hundred, and sixty-eight people back,
Would it?
Roger McGough
No Heroes
There were no heroes here
Amongst the men who tramped through
Rutted, quaking moor,
Or crawled, cat-silent,
Over skittering scree
To prove the way.
No heroes fought the blazing fires
Which sucked the very blood from
Ship and man alike.
Or braved knife cold
Without a thought
To save a life.
No heroes they, but ones who loved
Sweet life and children's laugh,
And dreamt of home
When war allowed.
They were but men.
David Morgan
August 6, 1945
In the Enola Gay
five minutes before impact
he whistles a dry tune
Later he will say
that the whole blooming sky
went up like an apricot ice.
Later he will laugh and tremble
at such a surrender, for the eye
of his belly saw Marilyn's skirts
fly over her head for ever
On the river bank,
bees drizzle over
hot white rhododendrons
Later she will walk
the dust, a scarlet girl
with her whole stripped skin
at her heel, stuck like an old
shoe sole or mermaid's tail
Later she will lie down
in the flecked black ash
where the people are become
as lizards or salamanders
and, blinded, she will complain
Mother you are late. So late
Later in dreams he will look
down shrieking and see
ladybirds
ladybirds
Alison Fell
Pigtail
When all the women in the transport
had their heads shaved
four workmen with brooms made of birch twigs
swept up
and gathered up the hair
Behind clean glass
the stiff hair lies
of those suffocated in gas chambers
there are pins and side combs
in this hair
The hair is not shot through with light
is not parted by the breeze
is not touched by any hand
or rain or lips
In huge chests
clouds of dry hair
of those suffocated
and a faded plait
a pigtail with a ribbon
pulled at school
by naughty boys.
Tadeusz Ròzewicz
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
Refugees
In dusk of helmet-brims the eyes look stern,
Unwavering, no matter what they see
And where they gaze - Bluff Cove,Thermopylae,
Kuwait, the Somme. The pillaged cities burn,
And when the owners of those eyes return
And put away their weapons there will be
An alien music in another key,
New words and syntax difficult to learn.
Wars never end. Across the livid plain
The dark processions trail, the refugees,
Anonymous beneath indifferent skies,
Somnambulistic, patient shapes of pain,
Long commentary on war, an ancient frieze
Of figures we refuse to recognise.
Vernon Scannell 1992
Your Attention Please
The Polar DEW has just warned that
A nuclear rocket strike of
At least one thousand megatons
Has been launched by the enemy
Directly at our major cities.
This announcement will take
Two and a quarter minutes to make,
You therefore have a further
Eight and a quarter minutes
To comply with the shelter
Requirements published in the Civil
Defence Code - section Atomic Attack.
A specially shortened Mass
Will be broadcast at the end
Of this announcement -
Protestant and Jewish services
Will begin simultaneously -
Select your wavelength immediately
According to instructions
In the Defence Code. Do not
Take well-loved pets (including birds)
Into your shelter - they will consume
Fresh air. Leave the old and bed-
ridden, you can do nothing for them.
Remember to press the sealing
Switch when everyone is in
The shelter. Set the radiation
Aerial, turn on the geiger barometer.
Turn off your Television now.
Turn off your radio immediately
The Services end. At the same time
Secure explosion plugs in the ears
Of each member of your family. Take
Down your plasma flasks. Give your children
The pills marked one and two
In the C.D green container, then put
Them to bed. Do not break
The inside airlock seals until
The radiation All Clear shows
(Watch for the cuckoo in your
perspex panel), or your District
Touring Doctor rings your bell.
If before this, your air becomes
Exhousted or if any of your family
In critically injured, administer
The capsules marked 'Valley Forge'
(Red Pocket in No. 1 Survival Kit)
For painless death. (Catholics
Will have been instructed by their priests
What to do in this eventuality).
This announcement is ending. Our President
Has already given orders for
Massive retaliation - it will be
Decisive. Some of us may die.
Remember, statistically
It is not likely to be you.
All flags are flying fully dressed
On Government buildings - the sun is shining.
Death is the least we have to fear.
We are all in the hands of God,
Whatever happens happens by His Will.
Now go quickly to your shelters.
Peter Porter (1960s Cuban Missile Crisis)
Green Beret
He was twelve years old,
and I do not know his name.
The mercenaries took him and his father,
whose name I do not know,
one morning upon the High Plateau.
Green beret looked down on the frail boy
with the eyes of a hurt animal and thought,
a good fright will make him talk.
He commanded, and the father was taken away
behind the forest's green wall.
"Right kid tell us where they are,
tell us where or your father - dead."
With eyes now bright and filled with terror
the slight boy said nothing.
"You've got one minute kid," said Green Beret,
"tell us where or we kill father"
and thrust his wrist-watch against a face all eyes,
the second-hand turning, jerking on its way.
"Ok boy ten seconds to tell us where they are"
In the last instant the silver hand shattered the
sky and the forest of trees.
"Kill the old guy" roared Green Beret
and shots hammered out
behind the forest's green wall
and sky and trees and soldiers stood
in silence, and the boy cried out.
Green Beret stood
in silence, as the boy crouched down
and shook with tears,
as children do when their father dies.
Christ, said one mercenary to Green beret,
"h didn't know a damn thing
we killed the old guy for nothing."
So they all went away,
green beret and his mercenaries.
And the boy knew everything.
He knew everything about them, the caves,
the trails, the hidden places and the names,
and in the moment that he cried out,
in that same instant,
protected by frail tears
far stronger than any wall of steel,
they passed everywhere
like tigers
across the High Plateau.
Ho Thein (Vietnam War)
We Shall Remember Them
We Shall Remember Them
No visit to a gracious Queen,
no presentation honouring the dead.
The day his medal came
her fingers fumbled with the padded envelope;
ribbon and steel dropped from her hand,
another piece rolled out of sight.
When they came home they found her there,
tears falling on the polished floor,
trying to fit the fragments of her son,
to make sense of the scattered jigsawof his life.
Home-assembly decoration kits
by order of a grateful Government,
broken like the bodies
they were made to celebrate.
But then he was, at seventeen, hardly a soldier.
Just a name and number in the power game.
Mail-order hero of a battle scene.
Sheila Parry (Falklands War)