A Challenge To The Dark Poem by Charles Bukowski
shot in the eye
shot in the brain
shot in the ****
shot like a flower in the dance
amazing how death wins hands down
amazing how much credence is given to idiot forms of life
amazing how laughter has been drowned out
amazing how viciousness is such a constant
I must soon declare my own war on their war
I must hold to my last piece of ground
I must protect the small space I have made that has allowed me life
my life not their death
my death not their death…
A Dead Boche Poem by Robert Graves
To you who’d read my songs of War
And only hear of blood and fame,
I’ll say (you’ve heard it said before)
‘War’s Hell! ‘ and if you doubt the same,
Today I found in Mametz Wood
A certain cure for lust of blood:
Where, propped against a shattered trunk,
In a great mess of things unclean,
Sat a dead Boche; he scowled and stunk
With clothes and face a sodden green,
Big-bellied, spectacled, crop-haired,
Dribbling black blood from nose and beard.
The Sonnet-Ballad Poem by Gwendolyn Brooks
Oh mother, mother, where is happiness?
They took my lover’s tallness off to war,
Left me lamenting. Now I cannot guess
What I can use an empty heart-cup for.
He won’t be coming back here any more.
Some day the war will end, but, oh, I knew
When he went walking grandly out that door
That my sweet love would have to be untrue.
Would have to be untrue. Would have to court
Coquettish death, whose impudent and strange
Possessive arms and beauty (of a sort)
Can make a hard man hesitate- and change.
And he will be the one to stammer, ‘Yes.’
Oh mother, mother, where is happiness?
On Cross Roads Poem by M. Asim Nehal
My mind says – Leave it and proceed!
My heart says – Stay and believe,
Is it a tug of war between mind and heart?
When life is on crossroads – intrigue and pursues.
This is too absurd and at times looks so surreal
although my mind is strong and filled with knowledge
Whereas, my heart is full of wisdom inspired by experiences
Logic is trying hard to defeat dreams
Soul is playing games with body.
This tug of war is making life so meaningful,
like uneven waves in normally a calm sea.
War Is Never Over Poem 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
War is never over
Nam veterans know this well
Now other wars bring memories back
Of their own eternal hell
War is never over
For I knew world war two
And I’ll not forget the battles
Or the nightmares that ensue
War is never over
Those left home to wait know this
For many still are waiting
It was their farewell kiss
War is never over
Though we win the victory
Still in our minds the battles
No freedom is not free!
‘Ave Ceasar’ Poem by A B Banjo Paterson
Long ago the Gladiators,
When the call to combat came,
Marching past the massed spectators,
Hailed the Emp’ror with acclaim!
Voices ringing with the fury
Of the strife so soon to be,
Cried, ‘O Caesar, morituri
salutamus te! ‘
Nowadays the massed spectators
See the unaccustomed sight –
Legislative gladiators
Marching to their last great fight;
Young and old, obscure and famous,
Hand to hand and knee to knee –
Hear the war-cry, ‘Salutamus
morituri te! ‘
Fight! Nor be the fight suspended
Till the corpses strew the plain.
Ere the grisly strife be ended
Five and thirty must be slain.
Slay and spare not, lest another
Haply may discomfit thee:
Brother now must war with brother –
‘Salutamus te! ‘
War-torn vet’ran, skilled debater,
Trickster famed of bridge and road,
Now for each grim gladiator
Gapes Oblivion’s drear abode.
Should the last great final jury
Turn their thumbs down – it must be!
‘Ave, Caesar, morituri
salutamus te! ‘
Absolution Poem by Siegfried Sassoon
The anguish of the earth absolves our eyes
Till beauty shines in all that we can see.
War is our scourge; yet war has made us wise,
And, fighting for our freedom, we are free.
Horror of wounds and anger at the foe,
And loss of things desired; all these must pass.
We are the happy legion, for we know
Time’s but a golden wind that shakes the grass.
There was an hour when we were loth to part
From life we longed to share no less than others.
Now, having claimed this heritage of heart,
What need we more, my comrades and my brothers?
Adieu To A Soldier Poem by Walt Whitman
ADIEU, O soldier!
You of the rude campaigning, (which we shared,)
The rapid march, the life of the camp,
The hot contention of opposing fronts- the long manoeuver,
Red battles with their slaughter,- the stimulus- the strong, terrific
game,
Spell of all brave and manly hearts- the trains of Time through you,
and like of you, all fill’d,
With war, and war’s expression.
Adieu, dear comrade!
Your mission is fulfill’d- but I, more warlike,
Myself, and this contentious soul of mine, 10
Still on our own campaigning bound,
Through untried roads, with ambushes, opponents lined,
Through many a sharp defeat and many a crisis- often baffled,
Here marching, ever marching on, a war fight out- aye here,
To fiercer, weightier battles give expression.
Politics Poem by William Butler Yeats
How can I, that girl standing there,
My attention fix
On Roman or on Russian
Or on Spanish politics?
Yet here’s a travelled man that knows
What he talks about,
And there’s a politician
That has read and thought,
And maybe what they say is true
Of war and war’s alarms,
But O that I were young again
And held her in my arms!
Corpses Delivery (Verse) Poem by Muzahidul Reza
In the war these heroes have died
Though the war was illegal,
They are martyrs
They have shed their blood in the war
For the country, for the nations
You hold their coffins;
Supported groups do violences, kill innocent
Spread horrors, terrors matter a less;
Opposite groups do those
Orders come to manage them anyhow,
Corpses are out and in
You hold their coffins;
The plane was crushed in the mid air
Lacking of fuel
The pilots, the crew, the passengers all died
Nobody to bear sorrows
The kins are informed coming
You hold their coffins;
A natural calamity was over the country
Government failed to check in
Many people died lacking of proper management
Now they are said unlucky
All the dead bodies are kept open
You hold their coffins.
