Keith Douglas was a war poet, killed in WWII serving in a tank regiment aged just 24. He's much less well known than Wilfred Owen or Seigfried Sassoon, those greats of WWI war poetry, but deserves to be much better known.
This excerpt fits well with remembrance Sunday.
From his poem 'How To Kill'
Now in my dial of glass appears
the soldier who is going to die.
He smiles, and moves about in ways
his mother knows, habits of his.
The wires touch his face: I cry
Now. Death, like a familiar, hears
and look, has made a man of dust
of a man of flesh.
2 comments:
I'd say he caught the full horror with a fine economy of phrase.
It is difficult to beleive there is any honor or glory in the reality of war. Have most men gone to war with resignation---because they must?
'in ways his mother knows/habits of his.' This gave me chills.
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