Thread: Remembrance Day, 2010

Ah, when you're there in the midst of it all,
When the bullets are flyin', and death is on call,
In the mud and the blood and the one-oh-five's bang,
For the risk of your dyin' you don't give a hang.

It's later, you know, in the darkness of night,
When no one's about, you give way to fright.
You think of the friend you had yester day
And the blood that spilled out in the mud where he lay.

Your own hands are clean, no blood have you spilled,
But telling their story can still get you killed.
You'll write it all up, with pictures as well,
How dirty and gory, the doorway to hell.

Edit: Prompted by a comment from Baron.

Very nice garza, strikes a cord of truth deep inside of me. Good work.

Strictly speaking from a technical view, I think it would read smoother if you dropped the is in the last line and just put a comma.

Gumby - Beat you to it. When I read it back I realised the last line didn't scan and the 'is' was superfluous.

It's remarkable how reading something out loud can point those little bumps out.

My grandfather always insisted I compose poetry out loud, and only write it down afterward. I've gotten out of the habit. Maybe I should return to that method.

Ah, a wise man your grandfather. I would have to be in a room all alone to do that, too embarassed to let people hear my mish mashed beginnings.

Garza,

I do like how you describe to us all that telling the truth can be gory and the doorway to hell. Very insightful.

Happy Veteran's Day to all vet's out there.

I had to do it at the dinner table - especially limericks. Also prose stories. I guess that's why I've never understood writer's block. When my grandfather pointed his fork and said 'tell me a dog story' I had to start a dog story on the next beat. No waiting around. We used to have Limerick contests, composing them as fast as we could say them. And they couldn't be sloppy - the had to be 3-3-2-2-3, syllable count 8-8-5-5-8. It's really not difficult once you've practised a bit.

How cute...your grandpa sounded great....enjoyed the poem, Garza.

Happy Veterans Day to the United States military!!!!

I liked this piece...and agree with Gumby that I could never let anyone hear the modest beginnings of most of my poems. They all require a bit of gestation time.

Thank you both for your comments. I believe my grandfather wanted me to be a lawyer, so he was teaching me to think on my feet.

Remembrance Day 2010 was written in about ten, maybe 15, minutes after a response from Baron to a thread on Remembrance Day I started in the Lounge. The tricky part was getting the internal rhyme of the second beats between the second and fourth lines in each stanza to work without forcing. If my grandfather were still alive he would insist that I carry the rhyme across all three stanza. I did not believe the poem was worth the amount of reworking that would have required. After I posted I had to go back and take out that pesky 'is'.

Remembering is a small price to pay for a lifetime of freedom.

On behalf of my fallen comrades, my son and nephew I thank you garza for bringing this forward.

On this day we do not romanticize war, but pay homage to our veterans and remember the sacrifice.

Thank you for your kind words. The recruiting posters never quite get it right.

Garza,

Thank you from a veteran; very heavy subject but handled with truth and respect.

BW

BWOz - Thank you. Coming from a veteran, that means a lot. You guys deserve our thanks. I was never armed with anything deadlier than a pencil and a camera, but I saw what you did, and I always tried to tell the story that same way, 'with truth and respect'.