Category Archives: War

“The River Runs Red” by Yue Fei [w/ Audio]

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Enraged, I lean on the rail as rain ceases.
 I look skyward, and sigh -- then roar.
 My grand legacy has crumbled to dust:
 A journey of thirty years and 8,000 li. 

Young men, don't let regret come with gray hair!
 The shame of Jingkang lingers -- a foul taste
 We Generals must wash from our mouths.
 Let's charge our chariots through Helan Pass
 To feast on the flesh of our foes & drink their blood.
 Only then can we return home with honor.

In Chinese, the poem is entitled 滿江紅 (Man Jiang Hong,) “The Whole River, Red”:

怒髮衝冠，憑欄處，瀟瀟雨歇。
 抬望眼，仰天長嘯，壯懷激烈。
 三十功名塵與土，八千里路雲和月。
 莫等閒白了少年頭，空悲切。
 靖康恥，猶未雪；
 臣子恨，何時滅？
 駕長車踏破賀蘭山缺！
 壯志飢餐胡虜肉，笑談渴飲匈奴血。
 待從頭收拾舊山河，朝天闕。

In Flanders Fields by John McCrae

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In Flanders fields the poppies blow
 Between the crosses, row on row,
      That mark our place; and in the sky
      The larks, still bravely singing, fly
  Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
  We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
       Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
          In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
   To you from failing hands we throw
       The torch; be yours to hold it high. 
       If ye break faith with us who die
    We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
         In Flanders fields.

Prepper Limerick

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Doomsday preppers prepare for Armageddon,
 neatly arranging food, supplies, and weapons.
   A combo of OCD
    & whooping hillbilly?
 I think I'll just let the warheads beckon.

Pillbox Kitsch [Tanka]

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what is this place,
 with its defensive bunkers
  on every rise?
 lasting vestiges of war,
  so unlike my childhood home.

The Futility of War [Haiku]

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two young gazelles
 lock horns and head-wrestle, 
  then quit and move on.

Scarecrow [Free Verse]

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Scarecrow, n. - that which exists 
                         solely to evoke fear.

There are so many scarecrows:
   global - the end of the world
                    as we know it.
   societal - the end of the tribe
                    as we know it.
   individual - scarecrows of the soul.

Scarecrows lead us into the worst
        versions of ourselves: 
 The one who's stressed, and mean
        because of it.
 The one who imagines conspiracy
        around every corner.
 The one who sees threat in every
        change & in every difference.
 The one who wants an orderly world
        of people just like themselves -
        familiar, cozy, and lacking surprises.

Scarecrows even march us off to war,
        and war should be the scariest state
              imaginable --
        death doled out on a random basis.
 
War should be the scariest, but terrible certainties
         spur less fear than any old uncertainty.

Metaphor & Misnomer [Free Verse]

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"in the trenches"

what a circuit 
 that phrase has taken:

from the Western Front 
 of World War I, where the trenches 
 were cold, claustrophobic places
 of mud and creeping mustard gas;
 harbor & prison for shell-shocked
 souls at wit's end

to become used by businesspeople &
 politicians to describe metaphorical fights...

but there are no metaphorical fights,
 they should be called metaphorical games

games have winners & losers,
 but not the living & the dead
 & the dying & the disabled &
 the permanently disturbed

it feels like a frivolous bit
 of linguistic creep as fighters
 now stand on cold, wet feet 
 in muddy trenches
 in Eastern Ukraine

talk of salespeople or 
 grassroots political organizers
 as "in the trenches" 
 misses the point that everyone
 in trenches is a soldier --
 be they a salesperson
 in the metaphorical "trenches"
 of calmer days.

Fields of the Dead [Free Verse]

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It's a beautiful day
  in the graveyard.

Blue skies.

Cool, but not cold.
 The ideal temperature
   to be an overdressed military man.

Do ghosts amble among the stones
   on days like these?

I imagine most of these men died
   on quite different kinds of days:

Rainy, cold, muddy days.

Muggy, buggy, malarial days.

The kind of day that just won't end,
   but to fold into a sleepless night.

How many died, 
  not from spall or Minié balls,
    but because they just didn't have the will
      to drag themselves through another day?
        from exhaustion?
        from demoralization?

How many died under beautiful blue skies
   on an idyllic autumn day?

I don't know whether 
  there're good days to die,
    and even less whether 
      there're good days to be dead.

Dogs of War [Lyric Poem]

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The dogs of war are slipping.
  The ropes they are a ripping.

The palms they are a bleeding,
  as citizens are reading

of risks that led to slippage:
  of quips and of equipage,

and how it wasn't expected,
  and courses were corrected,

but still it all goes wrong.