Poetry - sub genre War Poetry

[Warrigal]

I was watching an episode of Doctor Who last night and it featured a line "Demons run when a good man goes to war".

I looked it up and found this poem:

“Demons run when a good man goes to war
Night will fall and drown the sun
When a good man goes to war

Friendship dies and true love lies
Night will fall and the dark will rise
When a good man goes to war

Demons run, but count the cost
The battle's won, but the child is lost”
― Steven Moffat

It would appear that it was written specifically for Doctor Who but I can't help feeling that it has a wider application to the concept of war itself, and what it costs morally, even when the cause is just.

I'm opening up this topic in the hope that people might post some of the deeper poems relating to war and provide others with some discussion material.

Poetry has never been my long suit but I will try to give my personal interpretation of this poem.

I have never personally experienced war. I was born in 1943 in the middle of a big one but home in Australia I was cocooned from the horrors. My dad served in New Guinea and came home again but two of his brothers lie in war cemeteries overseas. Before them their father served in the Boer War and WW I and their grandfather sailed in the Royal Navy in a fully rigged ship.

Since then, no-one in my line has ever gone to war. I used to worry that my son might be conscripted or volunteer for military service, not so much because I was afraid of him being killed but because I dreaded what the experience might do to his inner self - his mind and his very soul.

All of the men I have referred to were/are "good men". I see the child that is lost as the innocence that good people have at their core and the night and darkness might be the dark despair and mental anguish that enters when innocence is lost.

I also interpret the poem as saying that only goodness can conquer evil, despite the terrible cost.

This topic is now wide open. All thoughts are eagerly anticipated.

 

[3horsefarm]

I have had young friends come back from places like Desert Storm. They are never the same. It changes them a great deal, and seldom for the better.

 

[Warrigal]

Looking around I found this effort by Douglas Stewart who wrote the radio play Fire on the Snow, all in verse. I studied it at school. It's about Scott's ill fated attempt on the South Pole.

This one deflates a lot of the rhetoric about war.

Fools will tell you we stand on the threshold of light
Douglas Stewart



It always astounds me how casually we rush to join ne wars, to crush new enemies.
How easily we forget the last one.

 

[Capt Lightning]

The Life That I Have is a short poem written by Leo Marks and used as a code in the WW2.

In the war, famous poems were used to encrypt messages. This was, however, found to be insecure because enemy cryptanalysts were able to locate the original from published sources. Marks countered this by using his own written creations. The Life That I Have was an original poem composed on Christmas Eve 1943 and was originally written by Marks in memory of his girlfriend Ruth, who had just died in a plane crash in Canada. On 24 March 1944, the poem was issued by Marks to Violette Szabo , a French agent of SOE who was eventually captured, tortured and killed by the Nazis.

It was made famous by its inclusion in the 1958 movie about Szabo, "Carve her name with pride" where the poem was said to be the creation of Violette's husband Etienne. (Marks allowed it to be used under the condition that its author not be identified.)


The life that I have Is all that I have
And the life that I have Is yours.
The love that I have Of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and yours.

A sleep I shall have A rest I shall have
Yet death will be but a pause.
For the peace of my years In the long green grass
Will be yours and yours and yours.

 

[Warrigal]

Very interesting Capt Lightning.
I enjoyed that film starring Virginia McKenna.

I did not know about the encryption efforts with poetry.

 

[Warrigal]

A poem that reflects the reluctance of the veteran to talk about war time experiences

Grandpa, What Did You Do In The War?

I’d been mowing the lawn and pulling some weeds, and slipped inside for a breather
I picked up the paper and turned on the news, not paying attention to either
When my grandson came in with a look on his face and a question that hit me full bore
An innocent question, no intention to hurt, “Grandpa, what did you do in the war”?

My skin went all creepy, I had sweat on my brow, my mind shot back fifty years
To bullets that thudded and whined all around, to terror, to nightmares, to tears
I was crawling through mud, I was shooting at men, tried to kill them before they killed me
Men who had wives and children at home, just like mine, just like my family.

“What did you do in the war?” he had asked, a question not meant to cause pain
But it brought back the horrors I’d left far behind in a deep dark recess of my brain
I remembered the bombs being dropped from the planes, the explosions, the screams, and the loss
Of a friend - or an enemy - but a life just the same, replaced by a small wooden cross.

The visions attacked me of tramping through jungles, hot and stinking, with leeches and flies
Of orders that seemed to make no sense at all - of distrust, of suspicions, of lies
I lived once again all those terrible storms, the dysentery, fever, the snakes,
The blisters that lived with me month after month, all those blunders, and costly mistakes.

But how could I tell the boy all about that, ’Twould be better if he didn’t know
It’s a part of my life that I don’t talk about from a good half a century ago
So I gulped, took a breath and tried to sound calm, and bid him to sit at my side
Then opened my mouth to say a few words, but the tears welled up and I cried.

He cuddled to me with a look of concern, and I mumbled of feeling unwell
Then took hold of myself, blew hard on my nose, while I thought of some tales I could tell
“What did I do in the war,” I began, then the stories began tumbling out
And they flowed with such ease I felt better again, and got over my pain and my doubt.

I told him of how I had made many friends, how I’d trained and had gone overseas
Made a joke of how seasick I’d been on the way, almost dirtied myself when I’d sneezed
I told of the joy of the letters from home, of the hand-knitted socks and the cake
That I got for my birthday but three weeks too late ’cause it went somewhere else by mistake.

We talked about mateship and what it had meant to trust someone else with your life
And of when I came home to my family again, to my kids, Mum and Dad, and my wife
Of the crowd on the wharf, the bands, and the pomp, and the pride I felt in the parade
But I’m not ashamed that I hood-winked the boy, a decision I’m glad that I made.

He can grow up without seeing fear in my eyes, or know of the terror I knew
For he’d not understand - and neither he should - all those memories that hit me anew
But maybe some day when he’s older than now, I will tell him what war did to me
But with luck he won’t ask me ever again, about wars that never should be.​

​

Jeff Cook​

 

[Underock1]

A good one, Warri. The more you reveal yourself through your posts, the better I like you.

 

[Butterfly]

For me, the idea of war poetry conjures up Rupert Brooke and "there is some corner of a foreign field that is forever England."

 

[vickyNightowl]

Has anyone read. Pat Barkers war trylogy? Its an amazing read and after I finished it ,it led me to a search on Siigfried Sassoon,which after led me to In Flanders Field. Beautiful war poetry and amazing story.