Leaving for the Front

Before I die I must just find this rhyme.
Be quiet, my friends, and do not waste my time.

We're marching off in company with death.
I only wish my girl would hold her breath.

There's nothing wrong with me. I'm glad to leave. (5)
Now mother's crying too. There's no reprieve.

And now look how the sun's begun to set.
A nice mass-grave is all that I shall get.

Once more the good old sunset's glowing red.
In thirteen days I'll probably be dead. (10)

Notes

Be quiet, my friends, and do not waste my time. (L.2)
The simple rhyming structure and address of 'my friends' gives a placid, almost childlike feel to the poem; heightened by the rhyming couplets. This is understandable as the poet in question also wrote books for children.

with death (L. 3)
The foreboding of the poem is brought in at an early stage. Death marches with them, even though there is nothing wrong with the poet  (l. 5) - yet.

I only wish my girl would hold her breath (L. 4) There is almost a sense of embarrasment here. The soldier, in his new company, is leaving the old familiarities (his 'girl' and his 'mother'), but both women are showing too much emotion, where as the soldier reinforces his own resolve by stating There's nothing wrong with me (L. 5).

the sun's begun to set (L. 7)
One can infer from this that the soldiers are marching westwards, into the red dusk of the setting sun. The glowing red of l. 9 foreshadows the blood that will be shed to fill line 8's mass grave.

In thirteen days I'll probably be dead. (L. 10)
The poet died in 1914.

Gala

Skyrocket burst of hardened steel
A charming light on this fair place
These technicians' tricks appeal
Mixing with courage a little grace

Two star shells first
In rose pink burst
Two breasts you lay bare with a laugh
Offer their insolent tips
............HERE LIES
ONE WHO COULD LOVE
..................some epitaph

A poet in the forest sees
Indifferent able to cope
His revolver catch at safe
Roses dying of their hope

Thinks of Saadi's roses then
Bows his head draws down his lip
As a rose reminds him of
The softer curving of a hip

The air is full of a terrible
Liquor from half shut stars distilled
Projectiles stroke the soft nocturnal
Perfume with your image filled
Where the roses all are killed

Notes

Gala (Title)

Gala - a day of festivity. The poem is addressed to André Rouveyre, a writer and artist.

 

Skyrocket burst of hardened steel (L. 1)
The poet served in the artillery on the front line. The visual imagery of the first two (and last) stanzas paints a vivid picture of an artillery bombradment.

 

In rose pink burst (L. 6)
The poet was an advocate of the new forms of art emerging at the beginning of the twentieth-century. He embraced modernism, and the start of surrealism. In this line, he plays with the colours of the artillery shells bursting in the night sky, by likening them to the almost collage-like appearance of red and pink exploding (mixing in images of bloodshed.) Note how the rose continually appears throughout the poem, bursting with light here, dying in l. 14, having deeper significance in lines 15 and 17, and then being killed in the last line.

 

HERE LIES ONE WHO COULD LOVE (L. 9)

The poet plays with punctuation and typesetting throughout the poem, here mimicking the inscription of a tombstone. The lack of punctuation throughout the poem mirrors other writers (e.g. Joyce, Faulkner, etc.).

 

Saadi's roses (L. 15)

This is a reference to the The Gulistan of Saadi, a 13th-century Persian (Iranian) poem by Sheikh Muslih-uddin Saadi Shirazi. 'Gulistan' means 'rose garden' and the text is based around a series of stories related to various flowers.

 

Projectiles stroke the soft nocturnal/Perfume (Ll. 21-22)

In a criticism of this poet the poet is described as using

 

vocabulary that is traditionally poetic as well as familiar or vulgar terms. Erudition rubs shoulders with banality, the exotic with the everyday, the refined and the obscene

 

His images are:

 

not to be constructed around a single monolithic image. Rather, they tend to include a variety of images in surprise juxtaposition. The Surrealist poet Tristan Tzara called them 'images de choc' whose force is precisely that of their ability to shock or surprise the reader.

Grodek

At nightfall the autumn woods cry out
With deadly weapons, and the golden plains
The deep blue lakes, above which more darkly
Rolls the sun; the night embraces
Dying warriors, the wild lament
Of their broken mouths.
But quietly there in the pastureland
Red clouds in which an angry god resides,
The shed blood gathers, lunar coolness.
All the roads lead to the blackest carrion. (10)
Under golden twigs of the night and stars
The sister's shade now sways through the silent copse
To greet the ghosts of the heroes, the bleeding heads;
And softly the dark flutes of autumn sound in the reeds.
O prouder grief! You brazen altars, (15)
Today a great pain feeds the hot flame of the spirit,
The grandsons yet unborn.

Notes

Grodek (Title)
A town now located in the Ukraine.

the autumn woods cry out (L.1)

Implying that the attack in progress is an attack on nature. Indeed the personification of nature throughout the poem raises it to the status of victim.

 

deep blue lakes (L. 3)
The use of colour throughout the poem is striking. In the previous line the plains are described as golden, we have the later red clouds of line 8, and the black carrion of line 10.

 

the night embraces/Dying warriors, the wild lament/Of their broken mouths. (Ll. 4-6)

The poet served in the Medical Corps and witnessed the horrific injuries of war first hand. The scenes he endured brought on insanity, and whilst under treatment at a military hospital he committed suicide by taking poison. He died in 1914.

 

an angry god (L. 8)

Mythological imagery seems to predominate, in fact the absence of Christian motifs is noticeable. This is an age-old conflict in which gods of war and thunder reside in the heaven, the moon looks on impassively, and ghostly figures stalk to the woods to welcome heroes now dead.

 

the blackest carrion (L. 10)

It is common in Old Norse/Germanic literature to accentuate the fighting by introducing the motif of the 'beasts of battle' — the wolves, ravens, and crows the feast on the corpses of the slain.

 

brazen altars (L.15)

There is a clear sense of sacrifice here. The broken dying warriors (L. 5) have been slaughtered, their blood shed (L. 9) on the brazen altars.

 

The grandsons yet unborn (L. 17)

The pain and loss here is elevated when the poet reminds us of the future lives and generations that have been lost by the premature death of their forefathers.

Breaking Camp

Once before, fanfares tore to blood my impatient heart
So, like a rearing horse that bit its mouth apart.
Then, the march of drumbeats drove the storm along the ways,
And most wonderful music of the earth sent us bullet sprays.
Then, suddenly, life stood still. Paths led between old trees. (5)
Rooms beckoned. It was sweet, to stay awhile and be at ease,
The body from reality released as from dusty armour freed,
To lie voluptuously in the feather down of soft dreams' bed.
But one morning through mist air the echo of signals rolled
Hard, sharp, a singing sword-thrust. As if fingers of light in the dark took hold. (10)
It was as when trumpets' blare through dawn bivouacs sound,
Sleepers spring to action, camp is broken, horses paw the ground.
I was lined in ranks that pushed into the dawn, fire over helmet and saddle
Forwards, in the eyes and in the blood, with stiff-held reins, the battle.
At day's end, perhaps, paeans for us would play, (15)
Perhaps under the dead somewhere stretched out we lay.
Yet before the stir to arms and before to earth we sink
Full and gleaming our eyes would of the world and sunlight drink.

Notes

Breaking Camp (Title)

An alternative title for the poem is 'Decampment', i.e. when an army packs up its things, and moves on (in this case to battle).

 

fanfares tore to blood my impatient heart (L1.)

By placing this in the past the poet implies that such emotions have passed, and may have been the result of youthful impetuosity. The celebratory tone of 'fanfares' is notable, as is the impatience the young man feels for enlisting.

 

And most wonderful music of the earth sent us bullet sprays (L 4.)

The poet fuses the man-made bullets with the natural rain (the 'sprays'). Again he/she uses sound effectively, highlighting the excitement that was originally felt in training.

 

Then, suddenly, life stood still. (L. 5)

This short, puctuated line, is the turning point of the poem. The vigour and excitement in the previous lines comes to an abrupt stop. Life, indeed individual existence, stops. Suddenly the poet (and his freinds) yearn for such basic luxuries as a room (l. 6), bed and sleep.

 

But one morning...horses paw the grounds. (Ll. 9-12

The dreams of basic comforts in the previous lines are immediately dispersed. In a series of sounds and actions the frantic activity of decamping a troop of cavalry is described.

 

lined in ranks (L. 13)

Again the point that normal life has stopped is reinforced here. The soldier is merely a pawn, a piece of the jigsaw, a cog in the enormous military machine. He does not join the ranks, or move into them, he is lined up as if he was a piece of machinery.