World War 2

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World War 2 Poets
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High Flight ( AN AIRMANS ECSTASY ) Oh, I have
slipped the surly bonds of earth and danced the
skies on laughter-silvered wings Sunward Ive
climbed and joined the tumbling mirth of
sun-split clouds and done a hundred things You
have not dreamed of wheeled and soared and swung
high in the sun-lit silence. Hovering there
Ive chased the shouting wind along, and flung my
eager craft through footless halls of air Up, up
the long, delirious, burning blue Ive topped the
wind-swept heights with easy grace, Where never
lark nor even eagle flew And while, with silent
lifting mind Ive trod the high untrespassed
sanctity of space, put out my hand, and touched
the face of God. John Gillespie Magee
1922-41
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Five Minutes after the Air Raid In Pilsen,
twenty-six Station Road, she climbed to the third
floor up the stairs which were all that was
left of the whole house, she opened her door full
on to the sky, Stood gaping over the edge. For
this was the place the world ended Then she
locked up carefully lest someone
steel Sirus or Aldebaran from her
kitchen, went back downstairs and settled
herself to wait for the house to rise
again and for her husband to rise from the
ashes and her childrens hands and feet to be
stuck back in place. In the morning they found
her still as stone, sparrows pecking her
hands. (Miroslav Holub)
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Cushendun Fuchsia and ragweed and the distant
hills Made as it were out of clouds and sea All
night the bay is plashing and the moon Marks the
break of the waves. Limestone and basalt and
a whitewashed house With passages of great
stone flags And a walled garden with plums on
the wall And a bird piping in the night,
Forgetfulness brass lamps and copper jugs
And home-made bread and the smell of turf or
flax And the air a glove and the water
lathering easy And convolvulus in the
edge. Only in the dark green room
beside the fire With the curtains
drawn against the winds and waves
There is a little box with a well-bred
voice What a place to talk of War.
(LOUIS MACNEICE) 1939
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Simplify me when Im dead
the opinions I held, who was my foe And what I
left, even my appearance but incidents will be no
guide Times wrong-way telescope will show a
minute man ten years hence and by distance
simplified. Through that lens see if I
seem Substance or nothing of the world deserving
mention or charitable oblivion not by momentary
spleen or love into decision hurled, leisurely
arrive at an opinion, Remember me When I am dead
and simplify me when Im dead. (Keith
Douglas)
Remember me when I am dead and simplify me
when Im dead. As the processes of earth strip
off the colour and the skin take the brown hair
and blue eye and leave me simpler than at
birth, when hairless I came howling in
as the moon came in the cold sky. Of my
skeleton perhaps so stripped, a learned
man will say He was of such a type and
intelligence, no more. Thus when in a year
collapse particular
memories, you may deduce, from
the long pain I bore

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Naming of Parts Today we have naming of parts.
Yesterday, We had daily cleaning. And tomorrow
morning, We shall have what to do after firing.
But today, Today we have naming of parts.
Japonica Glistens like coral in all of the
neighbouring gardens, And today we have naming
of parts. This is the lower sling swivel. And
this Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you
will see, When you are given your slings. And
this is the piling swivel, Which in your case you
have not got. The benches Hold in the gardens
their silent, eloquent gestures, Which in our
case we have not got.
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This is the safety catch, which is always
released With an easy flick of the thumb. A and
please do not let me See anyone using his finger.
You can do it quite easy If you have any
strength in your thumb. The blossoms Are fragile
and motionless, never letting anyone see Any of
them using their finger. And this you can see is
the bolt. The purpose of this Is to open the
breech, as you see. We can slide it Rapidly
backwards and forwards we call this Easing the
spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards The
early bees are assaulting and fumbling the
flowers They call it easing the spring. They
call it easing the Spring it is perfectly
easy If you have any strength in your thumb like
the bolt, And the breech, and the cocking piece,
and the point of balance, Which in our case we
have not got and the almond blossom Silent in
all of the gardens and the bees going backwards
and forwards, For today we have naming of parts.
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The Home Front
While the frozen armies trembled at the gates of
Leningrad They took me home in a taxi and laid me
in my cot And there I slept again with siren and
black-out And slept under the stairs beside the
light meter When bombs fell on the city So I
never saw the sky ablaze with a fiery
glow Searchlights roaming the stars. But I do
remember one time (I must have been four
then) Being held up to the window for a victory
parade Soldiers, sailors and airmen lining
the Antrim Road And later, hide-and-seek
among the air-raid shelters The last ration
coupons, Oranges and bananas Forage caps and
badges and packets of Lucky Strike. Gracie
Fields on the radio! Americans in the
art-deco milk bars! The released Jews
blinking in shocked sunlight A male child in
a garden clutching the Empire News. (Derek
Mahon)
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8th May 1945 Hasty is the flight of birds. Woe,
all that ever ready to soar Has the weight of
stones That endure under the earth, cemented with
the bodies and years of love. People have buried
their wickedly pampered war. Poppies bloom out of
beer. Paper-chains lace up the bodies of feverish
houses. The wet flags drip into sultry, festive
air. Behind the roll of drums A skater zigzags
over a frozen lake of blood. (Franz Baermann
Steiner)
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War Has Been Given A Bad Name I am told that the
best people have begun saying How, from a moral
point of view, the Second World War Fell below
the standard of the First. The
Wehrmacht Allegedly deplores the methods by which
the SS effected The extermination of certain
peoples. The Ruhr Industrialists Are said to
regret the bloody manhunts Which filled their
mines and factories with slave workers. The
intellectuals So I heard, condemn industrys
demand for slave workers Likewise their unfair
treatment. Even the bishops Dissociate
themselves from this way of waging war In short
the feeling Prevails in every quarter that the
Nazis did the Fatherland A lamentably bad turn,
and that war While in itself natural and
necessary, has, thanks to the Unduly uninhibited
and positively inhuman Way in which it was
conducted on this occasion, been Discredited for
some time to come. (Bertolt Brecht)
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If this is a man You who live secure in your
warm houses Who return at evening to find hot
food and friendly faces Consider whether this
is a man Who labours in the mud Who knows no
peace Who fights for a crust of bread Who dies
at a yes or a no Consider whether this is a
woman Without hair or name With no more
strength to remember Eyes empty and womb
cold As a frog in winter Consider that this
has been I commend these words to
you Engrave them on your hearts When you are
in your house, when you walk on your way When
you go to bed, when you rise Repeat them to
your children Or may your house
crumble Disease renders you powerless Your
offspring avert their faces from you. (Premo Levi)