10 November 2006
Sorry so slow
I'm not as prolific as I'd like to be. Life intervenes. Two big posts coming. Talk amongst yourselves.
One comment on Remembrance Day: It's not really about the veterans. It's not about the causes that they fought for. It's not about pacifism or warmongering. It's about the war dead, that they shouldn't be forgotten. Technically it's for fallen soldiers, but I'm going to be remembering all of the dead. For the purists, here's some classic Wilfred Owen:
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.
Of course, Owen's imagery pales in comparison to going to YouTube and watching someone being butchered by Gatling gun fire through the misty panes and thick green light of an IR camera. But then we expect that from Internet video. Having it presented in mellifluous, rhymed, metered, Edwardian verse tends to unsettle a bit.
One comment on Remembrance Day: It's not really about the veterans. It's not about the causes that they fought for. It's not about pacifism or warmongering. It's about the war dead, that they shouldn't be forgotten. Technically it's for fallen soldiers, but I'm going to be remembering all of the dead. For the purists, here's some classic Wilfred Owen:
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.
Of course, Owen's imagery pales in comparison to going to YouTube and watching someone being butchered by Gatling gun fire through the misty panes and thick green light of an IR camera. But then we expect that from Internet video. Having it presented in mellifluous, rhymed, metered, Edwardian verse tends to unsettle a bit.
Labels: war
// posted by Parge @ 7:26 AM
