The Iraq war, also known as the Second Gulf War and Operation Iraqi Freedom, was a war against the Americans and the Iraqis. The war begun on March 20th, 2003 and only ended on August 31st, 2010.
I feel that this war has caused many people to be inspired to write poems on war. These people are usually directly or indirectly affected by the war, and they feel that the war has left scars on them, thus they would want to express theses feelings into poems. Such poems are: “SERGEANT!”, “Travel my Road”, “Ecetera” and “IF TOMORROW NEVER COMES”. The poem for “IF TOMORROW NEVER COMES” is:
Life is uncertain nowadays
And truly, I do not know how many days I have left
It may be today or it may be tomorrow
That I can be called to leave this place.
And so my dear, we have no time to waste
Come and hold me deep in your arms
Let me feel alive
And love me like tomorrow will never come.
We have no time for quarrels
There is no need to be apart;
We are of one another
We are the beats of each other hearts.
Love me, is all I ask of you
Tomorrow is not certain
But this moment is ours to keep
Lets not leave any words unsaid.
Love me, love me, and love me!
We can capture this day, is ours to keep.
My number may come at any moment
But this moment will always live.
Hold me; bring me into your bosoms
Let me know that you are mine
And in case that I do not return;
Know that yours is my heart.
These four poems were written by Michael Pilarte. Michael Pilarte is an army staff sergeant deployed in Iraq. He got directly affected by the war as he had to a high ranking and thus had to plan for the war. From his poems, I can tell that he was scarred by the war. In “IF TOMORROW NEVER COMES”, he mentioned that any day could be his last, any day he could have died in the war. This shows that war is a very scary thing and you could just be breathing your last breath any second. In another poem, “SERGEANT!”, says that war is a dirty job and there would be a lot of blood. This is another example to say that war is very scary and terrible.
The thing that is unique about this poem is that unlike what is expected of an American soldier (patriotism, nationalism) he actually goes against those values inculcated in him and disagrees with the war. This is one idea that we thought volunteer soldiers do not have. Therefore, this sheds new insight on the lives of soldiers.
One other work is “No Flowers, No Doves” by Leo Yankevic:
When we entered the burning city
charred corpses greeted us.
A child's hand dangled from a scorched tree
and the twisted wreckage of a bus
mocked the stillness of the sky.
Gunner gagged, Ski scratched his head,
neither understanding why
he had to liberate the dead.
Leo Yankevich
This poem depicts a scene where almost nothing lives. Everything was killed by the war, the people, trees and the buses. This poem is quite gory, as it says “charred corpses greeted us” and “A child’s hand dangled from a scorched tree”. I think that the poet is exaggerating but his message to the reader is that war is a terrible and an immoral thing. We should try to solve problems peacefully without causing conflict or violence.
No comments:
Post a Comment