I love it, and thank you, I truly understand it fully now. Thank you so much, Oh I didn’t know that you where British. I respect 100% this poem, and I do understand. Alot of soldiers don’t truly understand what it is like, (not all) but alot and they go there not knowing what to expect, then once they get there they finally understand. If it is ok with you I would love to share this poem with my grandpa, he was in world war1 and I know that he would enjoy this poem. Again thank you for sharing this wonderful poem.

WOW, I felt so much… Reading that really made me think of the soldiers in Iraq, it made me scared and nervous but filled with hope of survival. It made me feel the pain that not only do they feel but what family feels when there loved one’s are over at war. I’m not sure if that’s what you where trying to portray though. You’ve got so much there that focusing on one thing is hard to do. I love it though and I feel that that is what brings your poem together. Excelent, but I would love it if you could tell me what it is the message your where trying to get out.

In the Trenches

By Jenny McBride, age 13

Less than half the summers,
Than he would like to have seen,
And that his brother will see,
And the other lads
That never fell for the lies
Will still see.
But the choice was not his,
Not really, but
The choice already made for him,
By the patriotic and the influential,
Who make it seem so glorious, so opportune,
To die
To die for your country, your turf, your home…
And the lies and letters
And stories
Made him dream,
Made it sound like he was someone,
(When really I am no one),
Just another nobody,
Who has seen too few summers –
And is wasting away now
In the last winter
That he will ever see.
And the posters that called for him,
That seemed to need him…
The outstretched finger,
Pointing,
But really beckoning him to death,
Showed none of the horrors
That the battlefield would wield for the weak,
And the strongest that find
They have lost the strength to fight,
When it is no longer clear
What is to be gained.
And the cruel, cruel wind
Like the sharpened knife
That kills
Without spilling blood,
Nor staining edge,
Fights for neither side,
Yet against both.
And the earth that is blemished
With the blood of the misled, trusting soldiers
Is not the roof of Hell;
How can she be?
When Hell stands so mighty and cruel upon her
(No-Man’s-Land, they call it),
Where no living soul belongs,
Only the sickening sight of the lonely corpses
Of the men that never deserved to die,
Out here
In Hell.
And the merciless wind whips at your hair
(Me mam were always tellin’ me to cut it…)
All these little, precious memories
Come flooding back
And draw the tears from your eyes,
And make you cry out
For Mam, for Pa,
For the past,
Or…
For Death…
And all around you, the putrid, rotting stench
Of death, and bloody corpses that lie
Abandoned
In poppy fields with the dirt and the mud,
With the rainfall of heaven’s tears
Upon their forms,
These structures of death,
To rinse away the sins.
And the blood, dried
Clinging to their frames
Like a grotesque blanket
For their deathbed,
And though a place in heaven was promised
Would the gates swing forth, really?
Because you begin to doubt
Even the Lord Himself
When it appears that He has left your side.
And the crude holes,
Dug like wounds in the soil
Are your only shelter
From the death above,
And the germs that feed off the blood in the cut
Would be they, the soldiers, who forgot for what they fought;
The parasites that cling to one another,
Though they have let go of hope,
In the darkness,
Lying in the Earth’s wounds.
Trenches,
They are named.
And the dust and dirt littering them,
Unavoidable, inescapable,
So why does it matter to those about to die
That their forms are plastered
With the blood of the Earth?
But trivial worries only
Can filter through their closed, numb minds,
That the angels of heaven
Would think them too dirty to enter paradise,
But turn them back,
To the pits of hell,
Or to life,
Which differs not
From Satan’s hall.
And the stone cold fear, the terror
Of the charge,
Across the vulnerable plains,
Of No-Man’s-Land…
Running to doom.
(Why? Why?)
Why follow a trail littered with the bodies of the dead?
Who had once laughed
And smiled
And spoken,
And dreamed…
And would he, too,
Tortured by the thought alone,
One day lie alone out there?
Never wept over,
(Because tears shame a soldier…)
Lying forever in the frail, precious sun that his soul barely saw…
A sickening thought: scattered limbs, broken body,
Heart still,
Tongue unmoving,
Silent forever more…
Sooner than fate meant him to be.
And the days until then, wasted,
Spent slumped,
In dark trenches,
Spine bent to the familiar shape of the clay wall,
(But not broken, never broken…)
And head bent on bruised knees,
Touching the raw, scabbed skin,
Crusted by dirt,
Hair trembling slightly,
In the icy wind that pierces the trench,
And stabs the skin,
That is by now used to pain.
And those dreams of glory,
Of winning,
Fade away in the darkness along with the life.
And memories are buried,
Because it hurts to remember…
It’s easier to forget,
Who you are,
Why you are here.
And the summers that have passed,
(For you, too few),
Die with the wintry sun, die with hope,
And the fear grows,
Until its shadow blots the dreams…
If only
You had never stepped out of your door that morning
Had never seen the tempting propaganda
That has hurled you into hell.
Because a poster
Stuck weakly to the train station wall
‘We need you, we need you’…
Bore all this
Because we are weak,
We want glory
We want to be recognised
As doing our bit.
Thank God the poster blew off in the wind
So maybe one more life can be saved from this suffering.

You just focus now on your final week of NaNo, OK? Excelsior and all that! And lots of cheers and barracking for all others doing it too.

DREAM

You came to the temple in full regalia.
I couldn’t see your face but I knew it was you
behind the bones and the hide mask.
You wore an insignia I recognised,
and no-one else has your eyes and aura.

A smouldering fire heated the night,
casting high shadows up polished walls.
Your familiar was with you: silent, attentive.
The circle gathered, barely glimpsed
forms of light around the great meeting table.

Together once more. And again
we raised power in the old ways of magick.
Now we wait for this working to manifest
through long and mundane days and weeks.
In sleep I am warmed, hearing echoes of chanting.

© Rosemary Nissen-Wade 2007