Men dying like the leaves
Up at 6:30 again thanks to the kitten, then an early start. More erection copy. Only a few more days this before I can get onto glaucoma.
Remembrance day today. Lots of stuff on the radio and TV about the first world war, and the Spanish flu pandemic afterwards which one expert was saying killed 50 million people globally.
Picked up my copy of The lost voices of World War 1 edited by Tim Cross. This had been given me by World War II poet Victor West who was a friend of mine but is now dead. The 11th hour always makes me think of Wilfred Owen's parents getting the dreaded telegram as the bells for armistice rang out in Shrewsbury, or one of my all time favourite poets Edward Thomas, when asked by a friend having enlisted in the Artists rifles at the age of 37 what he was fighting for, picked up a handful of soil and crumbled it between his fingers, saying "literally, for this." All that nobility lost, a generation of poets, for what seems today like the epitome of obscene futility. Edward Thomas, one of the most sensitive nature poets this country has ever produced, was killed by a random shell while fighting over a few yards of mud. Makes me think of Afghanistan right now. What the hell are all those half forgotten British boys from the Thames the Mersey and the Tyne dying out there for?
Victor was a POW in the second world war, and a teacher after it. I knew him for four or five years and had an enormous respect for him and what he had been through. It used to enrage me when people weren't respectful of him when he read his poems. He showed me several chapters of his memoirs and he had a very colourful life as a young communist before the war, and then fighting the Nazis and being captured by them in Crete.
Escaped for a bit of fresh air at lunchtime and bought a kitten collar. Then back home to work for several hours. Then sat on the sofa and woke up a little later with the kitten washing my face with its sandpapery tongue. Up the road to babysit for Anna and Anton as they went to Klaudia's first parent's evening. The teacher gave Klaudia a glowing report, which was nice to hear. Chatted for a while before returning home to drink redbush tea and lie low.
The last word should be Vic's.
The day we sank the 'Bismark'
The day we sank the 'Bismark'
was the 27th May 1941
and on Crete, the last day for us too.
The night before, the Company
numbered a hundred strong;
now we're down to twenty-two
The Major dead, soaking us
who laid him gently down
with bright arterial blood.
Now we can obey
that Verbal Order To Retire
that, living,
he would not accept.
"It must be in writing!"
He had stormed at the Colonel's runner
who shook, aghast. He'd been lucky
to reach us... Wouldn't try again.
Flung us last, depreciating rag of look...
doubled away to his own lonely death.
So all that morning
till weltering afternoon,
men dying like the leaves
that pattered down,
we had fought on beneath grim olive
under this madman whom we loved
until he died.
Victor West
Up at 6:30 again thanks to the kitten, then an early start. More erection copy. Only a few more days this before I can get onto glaucoma.
Remembrance day today. Lots of stuff on the radio and TV about the first world war, and the Spanish flu pandemic afterwards which one expert was saying killed 50 million people globally.
Picked up my copy of The lost voices of World War 1 edited by Tim Cross. This had been given me by World War II poet Victor West who was a friend of mine but is now dead. The 11th hour always makes me think of Wilfred Owen's parents getting the dreaded telegram as the bells for armistice rang out in Shrewsbury, or one of my all time favourite poets Edward Thomas, when asked by a friend having enlisted in the Artists rifles at the age of 37 what he was fighting for, picked up a handful of soil and crumbled it between his fingers, saying "literally, for this." All that nobility lost, a generation of poets, for what seems today like the epitome of obscene futility. Edward Thomas, one of the most sensitive nature poets this country has ever produced, was killed by a random shell while fighting over a few yards of mud. Makes me think of Afghanistan right now. What the hell are all those half forgotten British boys from the Thames the Mersey and the Tyne dying out there for?
Victor was a POW in the second world war, and a teacher after it. I knew him for four or five years and had an enormous respect for him and what he had been through. It used to enrage me when people weren't respectful of him when he read his poems. He showed me several chapters of his memoirs and he had a very colourful life as a young communist before the war, and then fighting the Nazis and being captured by them in Crete.
Escaped for a bit of fresh air at lunchtime and bought a kitten collar. Then back home to work for several hours. Then sat on the sofa and woke up a little later with the kitten washing my face with its sandpapery tongue. Up the road to babysit for Anna and Anton as they went to Klaudia's first parent's evening. The teacher gave Klaudia a glowing report, which was nice to hear. Chatted for a while before returning home to drink redbush tea and lie low.
The last word should be Vic's.
The day we sank the 'Bismark'
The day we sank the 'Bismark'
was the 27th May 1941
and on Crete, the last day for us too.
The night before, the Company
numbered a hundred strong;
now we're down to twenty-two
The Major dead, soaking us
who laid him gently down
with bright arterial blood.
Now we can obey
that Verbal Order To Retire
that, living,
he would not accept.
"It must be in writing!"
He had stormed at the Colonel's runner
who shook, aghast. He'd been lucky
to reach us... Wouldn't try again.
Flung us last, depreciating rag of look...
doubled away to his own lonely death.
So all that morning
till weltering afternoon,
men dying like the leaves
that pattered down,
we had fought on beneath grim olive
under this madman whom we loved
until he died.
Victor West
Comments
And you, Helen, what should I give you?
So many things I would give you
Had I an infinite great store
Offered me and I stood before
To choose. I would give you youth,
All kinds of loveliness and truth,
A clear eye as good as mine,
Lands, waters, flowers, wine,
As many children as your heart
Might wish for, a far better art
Than mine can be, all you have lost
Upon the travelling waters tossed,
Or given to me. If I could choose
Freely in that great treasure-house
Anything from any shelf,
I would give you back yourself,
And power to discriminate
What you want and want it not too late,
Many fair days free from care
And heart to enjoy both foul and fair,
And myself, too, if I could find
Where it lay hidden and it proved kind.
Rain
Rain, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain
On this bleak hut, and solitude, and me
Remembering again that I shall die
And neither hear the rain nor give it thanks
For washing me cleaner than I have been
Since I was born into this solitude.
Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon:
But here I pray that none whom once I loved
Is dying tonight or lying still awake
Solitary, listening to the rain,
Either in pain or thus in sympathy
Helpless among the living and the dead,
Like a cold water among broken reeds,
Myriads of broken reeds all still and stiff,
Like me who have no love which this wild rain
Has not dissolved except the love of death,
If love it be for what is perfect and
Cannot, the tempest tells me,
disappoint.