I thought this was good

jpatterson · #1 (**permalink**) December 11th, 2003, 01:22 AM

http://www.epicureansdelight.stockto...istmas1944.htm

The_Historian · #2 (**permalink**) December 11th, 2003, 01:59 AM

I like it!

Eisenhower · #3 (**permalink**) December 11th, 2003, 02:31 PM

haha...
poetry thread...hmmmm

[img]smile.gif[/img]

[img]tongue.gif[/img]

I'll start if if nobody else does.

The_Historian · #4 (**permalink**) December 11th, 2003, 04:28 PM

There was a young lady from Penge,
Who went for a pee on Stonehenge.
She'd just passed her fluid
When up popped a Druid
And spat in her eye for revenge!

Dear God...It's the way I tell 'em!

Eisenhower · #5 (**permalink**) December 11th, 2003, 04:57 PM

hahahaha...

I was thinking something a little bit more serious, but it's all good. Nice avatar, Historian.

The_Historian · #6 (**permalink**) December 11th, 2003, 08:10 PM

Cheers Ike!
Apologies for lowering the tone.

The pic's NOT a self-portrait, BTW!

Regards,
Gordon

Martin Bull · #7 (**permalink**) December 11th, 2003, 08:17 PM

Well, I'll raise the tone with one of my favourites from the Battle of Britain, inspired by the 'Saucepans Into Spitfires' propaganda : -

'My saucepans have all been surrendered,
The teapot is gone from the hob,
The colander's leaving the cabbage,
For a very much different job.
So now, when I hear on the wireless
Of Hurricanes showing their mettle,
I see, in a vision before me,
A Dornier chased by my kettle.'

Elsie Cawser
Salvage Song ( or : The Housewife's Dream )

Eisenhower · #8 (**permalink**) December 11th, 2003, 08:18 PM

No apology necessary...this isn't the thread and it probably will be the funniest thing I will read all day...

[img]tongue.gif[/img]
I was wondering about that pic...I didn't see it in the avatar list.

Eisenhower · #9 (**permalink**) December 11th, 2003, 08:20 PM

I guess this will be a thread...are we focusing on all poetry or just ones related to WW2?

Martin Bull · #10 (**permalink**) December 11th, 2003, 08:38 PM

WW2 poetry has been very much overshadowed by that of WW1.

On second thoughts, better not start a thread - I've got loads of stuff here by Alun Lewis ( killed in Burma ), Keith Douglas ( killed in Normandy ) etc etc....

Eisenhower · #11 (**permalink**) December 11th, 2003, 08:47 PM

I still do enjoy a good poem, related to WW2 or not...it would be interesting to see poems from different cultures.

The_Historian · #12 (**permalink**) December 11th, 2003, 08:50 PM

Martin,
Fire Away!

Regards,
Gordon

The_Historian · #13 (**permalink**) December 11th, 2003, 08:52 PM

Ike,
Yeah I got this from the avatar list, so can't claim any originality, I'm afraid!
Did I see Vic Morrow and the cast of Combat! in there too?

Regards,
Gordon

Eisenhower · #14 (**permalink**) December 11th, 2003, 08:55 PM

Really couldn't tell you...
Here's one I found that I thought was interesting...not WW2-related though.

Quote:

I Love Alone

My heart is crying tears of hate
Yet my eyes are dry and red
The realization comes too late
Memories of what was said

The once happy dreams, vivid and clear
Have turned into jabs of pain
I try to hide the inner tear
It falls off my heart and turns into rain

I smile and try to look for the best
Memories remain, it’s true
Even if the rest of the world is hate
I swear that I still love you

It seems that I waste my time
Your love for me is gone
My love for you will never die
But it seems I love alone

jpatterson · #15 (**permalink**) December 11th, 2003, 09:11 PM

"This Is Just To Say"

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the ice box

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

William Carlos Williams

Later

Martin Bull · #16 (**permalink**) December 12th, 2003, 06:05 AM

Risking wearing my fingers out - another one I like ( for all the re-enactors out there

): -

'I've learned to wash in petrol tins, and shave myself in tea
Whilst balancing the fragments of a mirror on my knee
I've learned to dodge the 88s; and flying lumps of lead
And to keep a foot of sand between a Stuka and my head
I've learned to keep my ration-bag crammed full of buckshee food
And to take my Army ration, and to pinch what else I could
I've learned to cook my bully-beef with candle-ends and string
In an empty petrol can - or any other thing
I've learned to use my jack-knife for anything I please
A bread-knife, or a chopper, or a prong for toasting cheese
I've learned to gather souvenirs, that home I hoped to send
And hump them round for months and months, and dump them in the end
But one day when this blooming war is just a memory
I'll laugh at all these troubles, when I'm drifting o'er the sea
But until that longed-for day arrives, I'll have to be content
With bully-beef and rice and prunes, and sleeping in a tent.'

Norman Trapnell, 'Lament Of A Desert Rat' .

jpatterson · #17 (**permalink**) December 12th, 2003, 09:55 PM

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

Randall Jarrell

Later

Za Rodinu · #18 (**permalink**) August 29th, 2008, 02:11 PM

Von Poop · #19 (**permalink**) August 29th, 2008, 04:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Bull

WW2 poetry has been very much overshadowed by that of WW1.

On second thoughts, better not start a thread - I've got loads of stuff here by Alun Lewis ( killed in Burma ), Keith Douglas ( killed in Normandy ) etc etc....

Not a great one for poetry, but I love Keith Douglas's stuff. One of the war poets we did at school that actually stayed with me, never mawkish, somewhat cold even:

Quote:

Cairo Jag.

Shall I get drunk or cut myself a piece of cake,

a pasty Syrian with a few words of English
or the Turk who says she is a princess--she dances
apparently by levitation? Or Marcelle, Parisienne
always preoccupied with her dull dead lover:
she has all the photographs and his letters
tied in a bundle and stamped Decede in mauve ink.
All this takes place in a stink of jasmine.

But there are the streets dedicated to sleep
stenches and the sour smells, the sour cries
do not disturb their application to slumber
all day, scattered on the pavement like rags
afflicted with fatalism and hashish. The women
offering their children brown-paper breasts
dry and twisted, elongated like the skull,
Holbein's signature. But his stained white town
is something in accordance with mundane conventions-
Marcelle drops her Gallic airs and tragedy
suddenly shrieks in Arabic about the fare
with the cabman, links herself so
with the somnambulists and legless beggars:
it is all one, all as you have heard.

But by a day's travelling you reach a new world
the vegetation is of iron
dead tanks, gun barrels split like celery
the metal brambles have no flowers or berries
and there are all sorts of manure, you can imagine
the dead themselves, their boots, clothes and possessions
clinging to the ground, a man with no head
has a packet of chocolate and a souvenir of Tripoli.

- Keith Douglas.

Cheers,
Adam.