Belated poetry hype...

Today is Thursday which means a few fantastic things. First, and most excitedly, it means Poetry day here! Yay! Be prepared, it’s going to be an awesome one. Second, it is a good day for Denise, because her family gets a letter from Eric on Thursdays. Third and fourth, which are both specific to this week only, I don’t have to work, and I am attending a play tonight at the University. It is called “Einstein’s Gift”, by the Canadian playwright, Vern Thiessen, and I have been reading a few reviews of it this morning. It sounds interesting and extremely thought-provoking. I will give my own review tomorrow, so stay tuned!

Anyway, here is a poem that has similar themes to the play.

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 gas shells dropping softly 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 devils 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 zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The Old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.*

*It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country