Killers

Felix Valloton

The Cemetery of Chalons-Sur-Marne

Killers

I am singing to you

Soft as a man with a dead child speaks;

Hard as a man in handcuffs,

Held where he cannot move:

Under the sun

Are sixteen million men,

Chosen for shining teeth,

Sharp eyes, hard legs,

And a running of young warm blood in their wrists.

And a red juice runs on the green grass;

And a red juice soaks the dark soil.

And the sixteen million are killing. . . and killing and killing.

I never forget them day or night:

They beat on my head for memory of them;

They pound on my heart and I cry back to them,

To their homes and women, dreams and games.

I wake in the night and smell the trenches,

And hear the low stir of sleepers in lines--

Sixteen million sleepers and pickets in the dark:

Some of them long sleepers for always,

Some of them tumbling to sleep to-morrow for always,

Fixed in the drag of the world's heartbreak,

Eating and drinking, toiling. . . on a long job of killing.

Sixteen million men.

~ Carl Sandburg ~

The Soldier

Francisco de Goya

Tres de Mayo

The Soldier

If I should die, think only this of me:

That there's some corner of a foreign field

That is forever England. There shall be

In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;

A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,

Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,

A body of England's, breathing English air,

Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,

A pulse in the eternal mind, no less

Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;

Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;

And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,

In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

~ Rupert Brooke ~

Charge of the Light Brigade

William Simpson

The Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava

Charge of the Light Brigade

Half a league half a league,

Half a league onward,

All in the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred:

'Forward, the Light Brigade!

Charge for the guns' he said:

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

'Forward, the Light Brigade!'

Was there a man dismay'd ?

Not tho' the soldier knew

Some one had blunder'd:

Theirs not to make reply,

Theirs not to reason why,

Theirs but to do & die,

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon in front of them

Volley'd & thunder'd;

Storm'd at with shot and shell,

Boldly they rode and well,

Into the jaws of Death,

Into the mouth of Hell

Rode the six hundred.

Flash'd all their sabres bare,

Flash'd as they turn'd in air

Sabring the gunners there,

Charging an army while

All the world wonder'd:

Plunged in the battery-smoke

Right thro' the line they broke;

Cossack & Russian

Reel'd from the sabre-stroke,

Shatter'd & sunder'd.

Then they rode back, but not

Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon behind them

Volley'd and thunder'd;

Storm'd at with shot and shell,

While horse & hero fell,

They that had fought so well

Came thro' the jaws of Death,

Back from the mouth of Hell,

All that was left of them,

Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?

O the wild charge they made!

All the world wonder'd.

Honour the charge they made!

Honour the Light Brigade,

Noble six hundred!

~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson ~

Do Not Weep Maiden, For War Is Kind

Lady Butler

Scotland Forever

Do Not Weep Maiden, For War Is Kind

Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind.
Because the lover threw wild hands toward the sky
And the affrighted steed ran on alone,
Do not weep.
War is kind.

Hoarse, booming drums of the regiment,
Little souls who thirst for fight,
These men were born to drill and die.
The unexplained glory flies above them,
Great is the Battle-God, great, and his Kingdom -
A field where a thousand corpses lie.

Do not weep, babe, for war is kind.
Because your father tumbled in the yellow trenches,
Raged at his breast, gulped and died,
Do not weep.
War is kind.

Swift blazing flag of the regiment,
Eagle with crest of red and gold,
These men were born to drill and die.
Point for them the virtue of slaughter,
Make plain to them the excellence of killing
And a field where a thousand corpses lie.

Mother whose heart hung humble as a button
On the bright splendid shroud of your son,
Do not weep.
War is kind.

~ Stephen Crane ~

War

Harald Sohlberg

Night

War

Old age in the towns.

The heart without an owner.

Love without any object.

Grass, dust, crow.

And the young ones?

In the coffins.

The tree alone and dry.

Women like a stick

of widowhood across the bed.

Hatred there is no cure for.

And the young ones?

In the coffins.

~ Miguel Hernandez ~

Plague Victims Catapulted Over Walls Into Besieged City

Arnold Böcklin

The Peste

Plague Victims Catapulted

Over Walls Into Besieged City

Early germ

warfare. The dead

hurled this way look like wheels

in the sky. Look: there goes

Larry the Shoemaker, barefoot, over the wall,

and Mary Sausage Stuffer, see how she flies,

and the Hatter twins, both at once, soar

over the parapet, little Tommy's elbow bent

as if in a salute,

and his sister, Mathilde, she follows him,

arms outstretched, through the air,

just as she did

on earth.

~ Thomas Lux ~

I Sing of Olaf

Jackson Pollock

War

I Sing of Olaf

i sing of Olaf glad and big

whose warmest heart recoiled at war:

a conscientious object-or

his wellbelov'd colonel(trig

westpointer most succinctly bred)

took erring Olaf soon in hand;

but--though an host of overjoyed

noncoms(first knocking on the head

him)do through icy waters roll

that helplessness which others stroke

with brushes recently employed

anent this muddy toiletbowl,

while kindred intellects evoke

allegiance per blunt instruments--

Olaf(being to all intents

a corpse and wanting any rag

upon what God unto him gave)

responds,without getting annoyed

"I will not kiss your fucking flag"

straightway the silver bird looked grave

(departing hurriedly to shave)
but--though all kinds of officers

(a yearning nation's blueeyed pride)

their passive prey did kick and curse

until for wear their clarion

voices and boots were much the worse,

and egged the firstclassprivates on

his rectum wickedly to tease

by means of skilfully applied

bayonets roasted hot with heat--

Olaf(upon what were once knees)

does almost ceaselessly repeat

"there is some shit I will not eat"

our president,being of which

assertions duly notified

threw the yellowsonofabitch

into a dungeon,where he died

Christ(of His mercy infinite)

i pray to see; and Olaf,too

preponderatingly because

unless statistics lie he was

more brave than me: more blond than you.

~ e. e. cummings ~

Les Grands Mutiles

Sir Stanley Spencer

Travoys Arriving with Wounded at a Dressing Station

Les Grands Mutiles

I saw three wounded of the war:

And the first had lost his eyes;

And the second went on wheels and had

No legs below the thighs;

And the face of the third was featureless,

And his mouth ran cornerwise.

So I made a rhyme about each one,

And this is how my fancies run.

~ Robert William Service ~

Priorities

Paul Cezanne

Pyramid of Skulls

Priorities

Napalm, or bomb,

little hands and little feet,

(Or leave a land-mine behind

to do the job)

Spread a noxious cloud of gas to sear tender throats and lungs

or conscript the helpless ones

to use as fodder

Kill the urchins without pause

in pursuit of your cause

(in alliance or uni-lateral)

Send a stone-faced rambo to emolate a village

exfoliate and pillage

(the damage is only collatoral)

Or, teach young minds of hell,

which you know of so well

and wound without lifting a hand

Damn them before they are born

doom them to despair

As con-artist pols and ghouls without souls

rant from podiums everywhere,

loudly,

on how much they care

~ Pandora ~

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner

Roy Lichtenstein

As I Opened Fire

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 the nightmare fighters.

When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

~ Randall Jarrell ~

The Lads In Their Hundreds

Winslow Homer

Prisoners From The Front

The Lads In Their Hundreds

The lads in their hundreds to Ludlow come in for the fair,

There’s men from the barn and the forge and the mill and the fold,

The lads for the girls and the lads for the liquor are there,

And there with the rest are the lads that will never be old.

There’s chaps from the town and the field and the till and the cart,

And many to count are the stalwart, and many the brave,

And many the handsome of face and the handsome of heart,

And few that will carry their looks or their truth to the grave.

I wish one could know them, I wish there were tokens to tell

The fortunate fellows that now you can never discern;

And then one could talk with them friendly and wish them farewell

And watch them depart on the way that they will not return.

But now you may stare as you like and there’s nothing to scan;

And brushing your elbow unguessed-at and not to be told

They carry back bright to the coiner the mintage of man,

The lads that will die in their glory and never be old.

~ A. E. Housman ~

Dulce Et Decorum Est

John Singer Sargent
Gassed

Dulce Et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

~ Wilfred Owen ~


Dulce et Decorum est pro patria mori.
It is sweet and right to die for your country

The War Prayer

Salvador Dali

The Visage of War

The War Prayer

"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth

to battle-be Thou near them! With them, in spirit, we also go forth

from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O

Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our

shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their

patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the

shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their

humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of

their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out

roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of

their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun

flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn

with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it-

for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their

lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water

their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of

their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the

Source of Love, and Who is ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that

are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts.

Amen.

~ Mark Twain ~

Big Dream, Little Dream

Henri Rousseau

The Representative of Foreign States

Saluting the Republic in a Sign of Peace

Big Dream, Little Dream

The Elgonyi say, there are big dreams and little dreams.
The little dream is just personal …
Sitting in a plane that is flying
too close to the ground. There are wires …
on either side there’s a wall.

The big dream feels significant.
The big dream is the kind the president has.
He wakes and tells it to the secretary,
together they will tell it to the cabinet,
and before you know there is war.

~ Louis Simpson ~