Readers will recall I challenged my son Joseph Kitchens III to write a poem about the First World War as we were in the midst of observing the 100th anniversary of that war. Joseph surprised me by submitting many such poems. They are short, ironic and grim, reminding us of the nature of all wars and that the price of war is paid by individual human beings.
A Hero’s Return
His forearms were long prosthetic crutches,
Never of any use for feeling anything of touches,
His legs were simply pegs,
Of less use at walking than two beer kegs,
He was mostly blind, for he’d been gassed,
And when he got off the train, at last,
His friends didn’t recognize him.
The Fumbled Pass
.Private Weems had daft bloody football dreams,
When they tried out for the division teams,
But fumbling his pass, he rained on the grass,
For a mine made of him a gelatinous mass.
Sgt. Pepper
Who here remembers Sgt. Pepper?
He was a lovely old bloodhound,
1 bark if by air, 2 barks if by sea
He stepped on a land mine
It blew him in 3.
Thanks for this one, I think. You’re reaching the emotional level of the great WWI poets, Joseph, at least in the opinion of a historian who’s not real knowledgeable about poetry but knows what he likes when reading poems about WWI.
Thank you, Joe, these words could describe happenings today. Except we no longer celebrate our war wounded as heroes, we don’t even know about them. A delusional populace iss one easier to lie to.
Greetings, Erika
The ghastly injuries are a metaphor for the state of a person’s soul after enduring the unendurable. They do however have conditional and situational meanings as well, and this shouldn’t be taken as a statement that they only just mean this 1 specific thing. I would not classify myself as explicitly anti-war, but I would classify myself as someone who is aware that war should only be the last result, unless it is pressed upon a nation.
If I had to explain the meaning of my ww1 poems in a general but overarching way I would say this; the ghastly injuries are a metaphor of people enduring the unendurable, and the people are a metaphor of nations that were involved. Each person mentioned symbolizes a nation, and a soul, and a person.