To Those Who Would Dishonour the Dead

 Apologia Pro Poemate Meo

I, too, saw God through mud– 

The mud that cracked on cheeks when wretches smiled.
War brought more glory to their eyes than blood,
And gave their laughs more glee than shakes a child.

Merry it was to laugh there–
Where death becomes absurd and life absurder.
For power was on us as we slashed bones bare
Not to feel sickness or remorse of murder.

I, too, have dropped off fear–
Behind the barrage, dead as my platoon,
And sailed my spirit surging, light and clear,
Past the entanglement where hopes lie strewn;

And witnessed exhultation–
Faces that used to curse me, scowl for scowl,
Shine and lift up with passion of oblation,
Seraphic for an hour, though they were foul.

I have made fellowships–
Untold of happy lovers in old song.
For love is not the binding of fair lips
With the soft silk of eyes that look and long.

By joy, whose ribbon slips,–
But wound with war’s hard wire whose stakes are strong;
Bound with the bandage of the arm that drips;
Knit in the welding of the rifle-thong.

I have perceived much beauty
In the hoarse oaths that kept our courage straight;
Heard music in the silentness of duty;
Found peace where shell-storms spouted reddest spate.

Nevertheless, except you share
With them in hell the sorrowful dark of hell,
Whose world is but a trembling of a flare
And heaven but a highway for a shell,

You shall not hear their mirth:
You shall not come to think them well content
By any jest of mine. These men are worth
Your tears: You are not worth their merriment. 

Wilfred Owen

To Those Whow Would Dishonour the Dead

One single shot shattered fragile peace

and your country needs you,

needs you now,

needs you to spill your blood and guts on foreign soil.

There are empty places at the table,

lineage as broken as the beating hearts he left behind,

no progeny to bear his nose his chin his eyes. 

Do you remember him or does he lie forgotten?

There are those amongst us

who would have us turn our backs

against those sacrificial lambs that,

ripe for slaughter

fell to earth for king and country.

To you who wear proud

your badge of smug self-righteousness

I ask:

When they first come for the socialists, 
will you speak out?

Lest we forget;

know of those whose fallen bones

lie lost beneath the sod of foreign fields,

where poppies bleed in awful grief

and give gentle nod of reverence.

I will remember.

Anna

FIRST THEY CAME--

First they came for the communists,

and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.

Then they came for the socialists,

and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,

and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

Then the came for me,

and there was no one left to speak for me.

Martin Niemöller

Remembrance Day is a memorial day to remember members of the armed forces who died in the line of duty.  It is not a glorification of war; it is a day to honour the dead.

Please don’t politicise it.

Also remembered, all civilian causalities and all those who through the death of civilians and armed forces personal were never born.

Image: courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Author: Tijl Vercaemer from Gent, Flanders #Belgium)

Remembrance Day: Anthem for Doomed Youth




Wilfred Owen's Grave:
 Ors Community
Cemetery, France

Anthem for Doomed Youth

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

 ---Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

 Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle

Can patter out their hasty orisons.

No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;

 Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,---

The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;

 And bugles calling them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?

 Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes

Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.

 The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;

Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,

And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

Wilfred Owen.

Wilfred Owen (please read his biography and beautiful poems here at The First World War Poetry Digital Archive) was born on the 18^th of March 1893 and aged twenty-five was killed in action on 4^th November 1918, leading an attack  by the Sambre Canal, near Ors, France.  His parents learnt of his death on Armistice Day.

Like many before him and many after him, he died for this ugly thing we call war – his, a young life wasted but bravely given.

The First World War, the first mindless global insanity brought about by the idiocy of the treaty alliance system, the war to end all wars…

and still we return to savagery and play our deadly tribal games.

We remember and honour all those brave young men (women and children) who died in WW1 - whether they be soldiers or civilians - and all those who have died in the countless wars that have followed, on this, this Remembrance Day.  We must never forget. 

One day hopefully we will learn from our bloody past (and present), and our future will be bright.  But I fear we will not…

Anna

Wilfred’s poem: 'This item is from The First World War Poetry Digital Archive, University of Oxford (www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit); © [Copyright notice]'.

Image: (also courtesy of the above) Reference URL http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/collections/item/5417

Lest We Forget

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved, and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

John McCrae, 1915

The horrific trenches in Flanders Fields were the site of around half a million deaths of soldiers (French, English, Belgian and German) in WWI.   The majority of soldiers who perished were the victims of the deadly gas Yperite which was invented in the nearby city of Ypres - a city almost destroyed in WWI.  Visit the Flanders Fields museum in Ypres (if you can), and discover the horror and hopelessness of being a soldier in the trenches.

On Remembrance Day we pay homage to all those who have died in battle, we hold our silence on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month (Armistice Day).  The admonition ‘Lest we forget’ was based on the hope that remembering the terrible human cost of military conflict (both military and civilian) we would learn and never walk that path again.

We have not learned and probably never will.  The very nature of humankind leads us to war.  It is my hope and belief that most warfare (in which we are the defender) is justified in that we seek to fight injustice the world over.  We cannot sit back comfortably while others are subject to man’s inhumanity to man.

First They Came

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

Attributed to Pastor Martin Niemoller.

We must always speak out, always fight wrongs, for if not we are lost.

We must always remember, always remember those who laid down their life for our freedom.  Remembrance Day does not glorify war nor is it a celebration for there is nothing glorious about war; war is a sad indictment that at base level we are still very much in our infancy, we have far to go before we reach our adulthood.

Hopefully one day, the white poppy of peace will supersede the need to remember lives in the form of red poppies worn today, red poppies that are true to the colour of blood spent on distant battle fields.  Until then, we must honour our dead, must always remember those who laid down their lives for our freedom.  Always remember, always, for if not they died in vain.

Anna