Soldier Poems
Insensibility
by Wilfred Owen
I
Happy are men who yet before they are killed
Can let their veins run cold.
Whom no compassion fleers
Or makes their feet
Sore on the alleys cobbled with their brothers.
The front line withers,
But they are troops who fade, not flowers
For poets' tearful fooling:
......
Little Boy Blue
by Eugene Field
The little toy dog is covered with dust,
But sturdy and stanch he stands;
And the little toy soldier is red with rust,
And his musket molds in his hands.
Time was when the little toy dog was new
And the soldier was passing fair,
And that was the time when our Little Boy Blue
Kissed them and put them there.
"Now, don't you go till I come," he said,
......
The Next War
by Wilfred Owen
War's a joke for me and you,
Wile we know such dreams are true.
- Siegfried Sassoon
Out there, we've walked quite friendly up to Death,-
Sat down and eaten with him, cool and bland,-
Pardoned his spilling mess-tins in our hand.
We've sniffed the green thick odour of his breath,-
Our eyes wept, but our courage didn't writhe.
He's spat at us with bullets and he's coughed
......
1914 V: The Soldier
by Rupert Brooke
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
......
Mandalay
by Rudyard Kipling
By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' eastward to the sea,
There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me;
For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say:
"Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!"
Come you back to Mandalay,
Where the old Flotilla lay:
Can't you 'ear their paddles chunkin' from Rangoon to Mandalay?
On the road to Mandalay,
Where the flyin'-fishes play,
An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!
......
The Soldier's Refrain
by Leon Moon
I awoke to my own corpse
And flowers my lover brought.
The war was fought
And not fought enough.
We had died dutifully
And followed orders perfectly.
The war was understood
But not understood enough.
......
God's Soldier
by Crystal Nelson
I can hear the echoing across the hills of heaven above,
Thousands searching for the ones they love.
Battling this end of life darkness as God as my shield.
For this darkness and evil could not be healed.
With God, the pain will soon be set free,
But even in death, death cannot destroy me.
Do not weep for me, For I will always be right here,
But leaving you all broken is what I fear.
I may not be here physically, so no longer will I be seen,
I'm fighting hard, but I'm left stuck somewhere in between.
......
A Prodigal Soldier of Words
by Hébert Logerie
I am a prodigal son of a gun
Who fears nothing under the sun
I am a brave and defiant soldier
I am a peaceful gladiator
My pencil is my sword
My pen is my deadly weapon
I write one word at a time, one word
Which can destroy their plan
My pen is like a machine gun
An M16, which spits with a lot of fun
......
The Unknown Soldier
by Jeffrey Pipes Guice
His mother waited in the window until she took her last breath... never receiving the news... never knowing closure... the boy who never returned... the unknown soldier...
The fiancé who cried herself to sleep every night... letters unanswered... days turned to weeks... months turned to years... not knowing whether to remain forever faithful... or to simply move on... the boy who never returned... the unknown soldier...
The dad who was never able to retire... he kept the family business running so that one day his son would have something to return home to... a dad who never lost faith... until he could work no longer... the boy who never returned... the unknown soldier...
The younger brother who lost his idol... a brother he always looked up to... his role model and his protector... feeling too guilty to ever use his catcher’s mitt... the boy who never returned... the unknown soldier...
© 2020 Jeffrey Pipes Guice
Some Sunny Day
by Brian Cowan
So, I sees ’im in the grocery store a-shufflin’ down the aisle.
‘Is cart stuffed to the brim with food an’ wife ‘n’ kids in tow.
An’ I can’t ‘elp but let myself put on a great big smile
At this image of the rough-an’-tumble man I used to know.
“Troop!” says I, when ‘e gets near; ‘e looks me up an’ down.
Then ‘e too smiles as broad as paint; ‘is missus starts to frown.
“Well it’s bin years,” ‘e says to me, I scarcely knew ‘twas you
An’ we settled down to chew the fat ‘bout ol’ days that we knew.
......
