XX Century Poems & Stories of War by diana-p

XX Century Poems & Stories of War by diana-p https://padlet.com/diana_paltrinieri/8ena2u90sdahw41f 5AL 21-22 en-us 2020-04-18 21:11:19 UTC 2023-04-05 08:06:34 UTC hello@padlet.com Dulce et Decorum Est diana_paltrinieri https://padlet.com/diana_paltrinieri/8ena2u90sdahw41f/wish/1464384368 Piegati in due, come vecchi straccioni, sacco in spalla,
le ginocchia ricurve, tossendo come megere, imprecavamo nel fango,
finché volgemmo le spalle all'ossessivo bagliore delle esplosioni
e verso il nostro lontano riposo cominciammo ad arrancare.
Gli uomini marciavano addormentati. Molti, persi gli stivali,
procedevano claudicanti, calzati di sangue. Tutti finirono
azzoppati; tutti orbi;
ubriachi di stanchezza; sordi persino al sibilo
di stanche granate che cadevano lontane indietro.
Il GAS! IL GAS! Svelti ragazzi! - Come in estasi annasparono,
infilandosi appena in tempo i goffi elmetti;
ma ci fu uno che continuava a gridare e a inciampare
dimenandosi come in mezzo alle fiamme o alla calce...
Confusamente, attraverso l'oblò di vetro appannato e la densa luce verdastra
come in un mare verde, lo vidi annegare.
In tutti i miei sogni, davanti ai miei occhi smarriti,
si tuffa verso di me, cola giù, soffoca, annega.
Se in qualche orribile sogno anche tu potessi metterti al passo
dietro il furgone in cui lo scaraventammo,
e guardare i bianchi occhi contorcersi sul suo volto,
il suo volto a penzoloni, come un demonio sazio di peccato;
se solo potessi sentire il sangue, ad ogni sobbalzo,
fuoriuscire gorgogliante dai polmoni guasti di bava,
osceni come il cancro, amari come il rigurgito
di disgustose, incurabili piaghe su lingue innocenti -
amico mio, non ripeteresti con tanto compiaciuto fervore
a fanciulli ansiosi di farsi raccontare gesta disperate,
la vecchia Menzogna: Dulce et decorum est
pro patria mori.

W. Owen, 1917]]> 2021-04-27 13:56:03 UTC https://padlet.com/diana_paltrinieri/8ena2u90sdahw41f/wish/1464384368 A wounded soldier is carried through knee-high mud during the battle of Passchendaele in Flanders. diana_paltrinieri https://padlet.com/diana_paltrinieri/8ena2u90sdahw41f/wish/1464503378 2021-04-27 14:18:09 UTC https://padlet.com/diana_paltrinieri/8ena2u90sdahw41f/wish/1464503378 The Soldier diana_paltrinieri https://padlet.com/diana_paltrinieri/8ena2u90sdahw41f/wish/1464606411 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,

A pulse in the eternal mind, no less

Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;

Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;

And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,

In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

Rupert Brooke, 1915

]]> 2021-04-27 14:36:45 UTC https://padlet.com/diana_paltrinieri/8ena2u90sdahw41f/wish/1464606411 AFTERMATH diana_paltrinieri https://padlet.com/diana_paltrinieri/8ena2u90sdahw41f/wish/1464685717 Have you forgotten yet?...
For the world's events have rumbled on since those gagged days,
Like traffic checked a while at the crossing of city ways:
And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flow
Like clouds in the lit heavens of life; and you're a man reprieved to go,
Taking your peaceful share of Time, with joy to spare.
But the past is just the same,—and War's a bloody game....
Have you forgotten yet?...
Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that you'll never forget.

Do you remember the dark months you held the sector at Mametz,—
The nights you watched and wired and dug and piled sandbags on parapets?
Do you remember the rats; and the stench
Of corpses rotting in front of the front-line trench,—
And dawn coming, dirty-white, and chill with a hopeless rain?
Do you ever stop and ask, "Is it all going to happen again?"

Do you remember that hour of din before the attack,—
And the anger, the blind compassion that seized and shook you then
As you peered at the doomed and haggard faces of your men?
Do you remember the stretcher-cases lurching back
With dying eyes and lolling heads, those ashen-grey
Masks of the lads who once were keen and kind and gay?

Have you forgotten yet?...
Look up, and swear by the green of the Spring that you'll never forget.

Siegfried Sassoon, 1919

]]> 2021-04-27 14:51:21 UTC https://padlet.com/diana_paltrinieri/8ena2u90sdahw41f/wish/1464685717 diana_paltrinieri https://padlet.com/diana_paltrinieri/8ena2u90sdahw41f/wish/1464821090 2021-04-27 15:15:53 UTC https://padlet.com/diana_paltrinieri/8ena2u90sdahw41f/wish/1464821090 Kid soldier in the Great War diana_paltrinieri https://padlet.com/diana_paltrinieri/8ena2u90sdahw41f/wish/1464835849 2021-04-27 15:18:36 UTC https://padlet.com/diana_paltrinieri/8ena2u90sdahw41f/wish/1464835849 Ambulance in the mud diana_paltrinieri https://padlet.com/diana_paltrinieri/8ena2u90sdahw41f/wish/1464846869 2021-04-27 15:20:36 UTC https://padlet.com/diana_paltrinieri/8ena2u90sdahw41f/wish/1464846869 Survivors diana_paltrinieri https://padlet.com/diana_paltrinieri/8ena2u90sdahw41f/wish/1464911692 No doubt they’ll soon get well; the shock and strain
Have caused their stammering, disconnected talk.
Of course they’re ‘longing to go out again,’—
These boys with old, scared faces, learning to walk.
They’ll soon forget their haunted nights; their cowed
Subjection to the ghosts of friends who died,—
Their dreams that drip with murder; and they’ll be proud
Of glorious war that shatter’d all their pride…
Men who went out to battle, grim and glad;
Children, with eyes that hate you, broken and mad.
S. Sassoon, 1917]]> 2021-04-27 15:32:34 UTC https://padlet.com/diana_paltrinieri/8ena2u90sdahw41f/wish/1464911692 Suicide in the Trenches diana_paltrinieri https://padlet.com/diana_paltrinieri/8ena2u90sdahw41f/wish/1464968888 I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.

S. Sassoon, 1918]]> 2021-04-27 15:42:34 UTC https://padlet.com/diana_paltrinieri/8ena2u90sdahw41f/wish/1464968888 There is nothing worse than war (photocopy) diana_paltrinieri https://padlet.com/diana_paltrinieri/8ena2u90sdahw41f/wish/1465104166 2021-04-27 16:07:33 UTC https://padlet.com/diana_paltrinieri/8ena2u90sdahw41f/wish/1465104166 diana_paltrinieri https://padlet.com/diana_paltrinieri/8ena2u90sdahw41f/wish/1475730209 2021-04-29 20:05:58 UTC https://padlet.com/diana_paltrinieri/8ena2u90sdahw41f/wish/1475730209 diana_paltrinieri https://padlet.com/diana_paltrinieri/8ena2u90sdahw41f/wish/1475733992 2021-04-29 20:06:57 UTC https://padlet.com/diana_paltrinieri/8ena2u90sdahw41f/wish/1475733992 Some corner of a foreign field that is forever England... diana_paltrinieri https://padlet.com/diana_paltrinieri/8ena2u90sdahw41f/wish/1475775815 Ypres Cemetery in Belgium just after the end of the World War One]]> 2021-04-29 20:19:43 UTC https://padlet.com/diana_paltrinieri/8ena2u90sdahw41f/wish/1475775815 Shell shock, or PTSD diana_paltrinieri https://padlet.com/diana_paltrinieri/8ena2u90sdahw41f/wish/1475821286 2021-04-29 20:33:59 UTC https://padlet.com/diana_paltrinieri/8ena2u90sdahw41f/wish/1475821286 Does it Matter diana_paltrinieri https://padlet.com/diana_paltrinieri/8ena2u90sdahw41f/wish/2052773537 Does it matter? - losing your legs?
For people will always be kind,
And you need not show that you mind
When the others come in after hunting
To gobble their muffins and eggs.

Does it matter? - losing your sight?...
There's such splendid work for the blind;
And people will always be kind,
As you sit on the terrace remembering
And turning your face to the light.

Do they matter ?- those dreams from the pit?...
You can drink and forget and be glad,
And people won't say that you're mad;
For they'll know you've fought for your country
And no one will worry a bit.

Siegfried Sassoon

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