Gunner
Did they send me away from my cat and my wife
To a doctor who poked me and counted my teeth,
To a line on a plain, to a stove in a tent?
Did I nod in the flies of the schools?
And the fighters rolled into the tracer like rabbits,
The blood froze over my splints like a scab --
Did I snore, all still and grey in the turret,
Till the palms rose out of the sea with my death?
And the world ends here, in the sand of a grave,
All my wars over? How easy it was to die!
Has my wife a pension of so many mice?
Did the medals go home to my cat?
poem by Randall Jarrell
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Related quotes
The Spaewife
OH, I wad like to ken—to the beggar-wife says I—
Why chops are guid to brander and nane sae guid to fry.
An’ siller, that ’s sae braw to keep, is brawer still to gi’e.
It ’s gey an’ easy spierin’, says the beggar-wife to me.
Oh, I wad like to ken—to the beggar-wife says I—
Hoo a’things come to be whaur we find them when we try,
The lasses in their claes an’ the fishes in the sea.
It ’s gey an’ easy spierin’, says the beggar-wife to me.
Oh, I wad like to ken—to the beggar-wife says I—
Why lads are a’ to sell an’lasses a’ to buy;
An’ naebody for dacency but barely twa or three.
It ’s gey an’ easy spierin’, says the beggar-wife to me.
Oh, I wad like to ken—to the beggar-wife says I—
Gin death’s as shure to men as killin’ is to kye,
Why God has filled the yearth sae fu’ o’ tasty things to pree.
It ’s gey an’ easy spierin’, says the beggar-wife to me.
Oh, I wad like to ken—to the beggar-wife says I—
The reason o’ the cause an’ the wherefore o’ the why,
Wi’ mony anither riddle brings the tear into my e’e.
It ’s gey an’ easy spierin’, says the beggar-wife to me.
poem by Robert Louis Stevenson
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The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner
From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
poem by Randall Jarrell
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Grey Wolves Grey
The Russian march is soft and slow,
Through dust and heat, or slush and snow,
When the Russian skies hang grey and low
To the frontiers far where the Russians go;
And they march to-night and they march to-day
Like the grey wolves grey, like the grey wolves grey.
Nor song nor sound their track reveals,
Save the ceaseless “clock” of the waggon wheels;
But a rift in the mist shows a glint of sun
On the long, dark shape of a toiling gun;
And they strain by night and they drag by day
To a distant goal, like the grey wolves grey.
As the horses toil at the ends of trains,
And the ends of roads on the Blacksoil Plains.
And Ivan digs in the frozen clay,
And he rolls the logs a bed to lay
For a gun that’s five hundred miles away,
But as sure to come as the grey wolves grey.
He is marching on with a purpose grand,
For brother Slav in another land;
Whose tongue, perchance, he cannot understand.—
But he knows the cry from the far-away,
And he smells the blood like the grey wolves grey.
And Ivan’s wife in her den at home,
While hunger looms and his lean wolves come—
With her grey-black bread like the Darling mud,
And her tea-bricks bound with the bullock’s blood—
She shields her cubs by night and day
Like the crouching sluts of the grey wolves grey.
And I march with Ivan where’er he be,
With the foreign blood that is strong in me,
And the love and the hate that is fantasy,
Like the ghosts of a father’s memory.
With the blood that is strange to us to-day
As the strange wild blood of the grey wolves grey.
Grey wolves,
Grey wolves—
The strange wild blood of the grey wolves grey.
poem by Henry Lawson
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A Little Note Of Her Life
she is my wife
she is not a little note of my life
she is occupying the full page
of my ads
for one thing
she keeps cutting all the leaves of the palms in my garden
and it is getting hot in here
when some of the bushes begins to flower
she cuts them all again
leaving my garden empty
except for the bleeding twigs of the tree
leaving the little life of others in misery
she is my wife
when she dies she will still be my wife
that little note of my life
my garden shall be full of flowers
my bushes shall bear more
and all the leaves of the palms in my garden
shall be green till the end of their
spans
opps don't take this against me
she is my wife
and she will always be my wife
a little note of my life
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Family life
At home
Husband
And wife...
Some time fighting...
Word's to words...
With bad words...
Sometime hit
The husband wife
Mistakes...
Wife was crying...
Husband was woory...
Wife also
Lovingely hit...
Husband also take easy...
At night husband
Wanted wife
For sex...
Wife will say
Backpain acting
Going for
Hear with life
Every day
At familylife...!
poem by Otteri Selvakumar
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Sea-Wife
There dwells a wife by the Northern Gate,
And a wealthy wife is she;
She breeds a breed o' rovin' men
And casts them over sea.
And some are drowned in deep water,
And some in sight o' shore,
And word goes back to the weary wife
And ever she sends more.
For since that wife had gate or gear,
Or hearth or garth or bield,
She willed her sons to the white harvest,
And that is a bitter yield.
She wills her sons to the wet ploughing,
To ride the horse of tree,
And syne her sons come back again
Far-spent from out the sea.
The good wife's sons come home again
With little into their hands,
But the lore of men that ha' dealt with men
In the new and naked lands;
But the faith of men that ha' brothered men
By more than easy breath,
And the eyes o' men that ha' read wi' men
In the open books of death.
Rich are they, rich in wonders seen,
But poor in the goods o' men;
So what they ha' got by the skin o' their teeth
They sell for their teeth again.
For whether they lose to the naked life
Or win to their hearts' desire,
They tell it all to the weary wife
That nods beside the fire.
Her hearth is wide to every wind
That makes the white ash spin;
And tide and tide and 'tween the tides
Her sons go out and in;
(Out with great mirth that do desire
Hazard of trackless ways,
In with content to wait their watch
And warm before the blaze);
And some return by failing light,
And some in waking dream,
For she hears the heels of the dripping ghosts
That ride the rough roof-beam.
Home, they come home from all the ports,
The living and the dead;
The good wife's sons come home again
For her blessing on their head!
poem by Rudyard Kipling
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The Sea-Wife
There dwells a wife by the Northern Gate,
And a wealthy wife is she;
She breeds a breed o' rovin' men
And casts them over sea.
And some are drowned in deep water,
And some in sight o' shore,
And word goes back to the weary wife
And ever she sends more.
For since that wife had gate or gear,
Or hearth or garth or bield,
She willed her sons to the white harvest,
And that is a bitter yield.
She wills her sons to the wet ploughing,
To ride the horse of tree,
And syne her sons come back again
Far-spent from out the sea.
The good wife's sons come home again
With little into their hands,
But the lore of men that ha' dealt with men
In the new and naked lands;
But the faith of men that ha' brothered men
By more than easy breath,
And the eyes o' men that ha' read wi' men
In the open books of death.
Rich are they, rich in wonders seen,
But poor in the goods o' men;
So what they ha' got by the skin o' their teeth
They sell for their teeth again.
For whether they lose to the naked life
Or win to their hearts' desire,
They tell it all to the weary wife
That nods beside the fire.
Her hearth is wide to every wind
That makes the white ash spin;
And tide and tide and 'tween the tides
Her sons go out and in;
(Out with great mirth that do desire
Hazard of trackless ways,
In with content to wait their watch
And warm before the blaze);
And some return by failing light,
And some in waking dream,
For she hears the heels of the dripping ghosts
That ride the rough roof-beam.
Home, they come home from all the ports,
The living and the dead;
The good wife's sons come home again
For her blessing on their head!
poem by Rudyard Kipling
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Freedom of Love
(Translated from the French by Edouard Rodti)
My wife with the hair of a wood fire
With the thoughts of heat lightning
With the waist of an hourglass
With the waist of an otter in the teeth of a tiger
My wife with the lips of a cockade and of a bunch of stars of the last magnitude
With the teeth of tracks of white mice on the white earth
With the tongue of rubbed amber and glass
My wife with the tongue of a stabbed host
With the tongue of a doll that opens and closes its eyes
With the tongue of an unbelievable stone
My wife with the eyelashes of strokes of a child's writing
With brows of the edge of a swallow's nest
My wife with the brow of slates of a hothouse roof
And of steam on the panes
My wife with shoulders of champagne
And of a fountain with dolphin-heads beneath the ice
My wife with wrists of matches
My wife with fingers of luck and ace of hearts
With fingers of mown hay
My wife with armpits of marten and of beechnut
And of Midsummer Night
Of privet and of an angelfish nest
With arms of seafoam and of riverlocks
And of a mingling of the wheat and the mill
My wife with legs of flares
With the movements of clockwork and despair
My wife with calves of eldertree pith
My wife with feet of initials
With feet of rings of keys and Java sparrows drinking
My wife with a neck of unpearled barley
My wife with a throat of the valley of gold
Of a tryst in the very bed of the torrent
With breasts of night
My wife with breasts of a marine molehill
My wife with breasts of the ruby's crucible
With breasts of the rose's spectre beneath the dew
My wife with the belly of an unfolding of the fan of days
With the belly of a gigantic claw
My wife with the back of a bird fleeing vertically
With a back of quicksilver
With a back of light
With a nape of rolled stone and wet chalk
And of the drop of a glass where one has just been drinking
My wife with hips of a skiff
With hips of a chandelier and of arrow-feathers
And of shafts of white peacock plumes
Of an insensible pendulum
My wife with buttocks of sandstone and asbestos
My wife with buttocks of swans' backs
My wife with buttocks of spring
With the sex of an iris
My wife with the sex of a mining-placer and of a platypus
My wife with a sex of seaweed and ancient sweetmeat
My wife with a sex of mirror
My wife with eyes full of tears
With eyes of purple panoply and of a magnetic needle
My wife with savanna eyes
My wife with eyes of water to he drunk in prison
My wife with eyes of wood always under the axe
My wife with eyes of water-level of level of air earth and fire
poem by Andre Breton
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A Rose To Remember....
i am reading about the death of a rose
i am reflecting about
death of freedom
it is all about a rose, a wilting rose, a brown rose,
a dry rose
each petal falling softly on the ground
a dry ground full of sand and pebbles
all footprints covered
abandoned, i am talking
about the death of a rose, the death of the freedom of the rose
the death of freedom, the rose of death, the freedom of death,
is it you now that i talk about? that i must remember?
have i met you before when i was but a thorn, a worm, a leaf?
was i the sand
a pebble, the wind? will you be a rose forever?
is there death in you?
i feel the wind, i smell the rose,
there is no death....
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Cyber War
I have heard of many great nations
That rose and fell like sand-mansions
Many great empires were built
And inscrutably ruined in a single tilt.
Be it a Golden Horde of Byzantine
Either Roman or Ottoman line
Whether weighed in billions or dime
All fell in the clutches of time.
I have heard of many great wars
And what they left behind scars
Gallic Wars and War of Devolution
Baron's war and War of the Bavarian succession
Then we hear of the World War one and two--
All they brought was nothing but woe;
Why talk about civil wars waged in all lands
Either fought by militia or guerilla bands,
By heroes, warriors or traitors
With scuds, bombers or Jet fighters
The age of science thus upgraded the fights
To either cold war or the conflict of rights;
While the losses of wars not yet forgotten
So many rulers will probably be rotten
In the battlefield of science and trade war
Leaving us all to either make or mar,
And if we still happen to survive
Just wait for the Cyber war to arrive.
poem by Chen S. Nagar
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Bell In The Sea
(music: marillion lyrics: steve hogarth & john helmer)
I dreamed I rolled on the ocean floor
In the sunken bones of a broken ship
On the shadow line where whispers creep
To the world above from the world beneath
On waves of silver I dreamed of gold
till I lost the peace that dreaming gives
I dreamed of the moment of my own death
That no one ever dreams and lives
I dreamed I sailed to the mirrored edge
Of that murky world for an iron bell
That dragged me down to the ocean bed
And rang to mark where my shadow fell
On waves of silver I dreamed of gold
till I lost the peace that dreaming gives
I dreamed of the moment of my own death
That no one ever dreams and lives
That no one ever dreams and lives
That no one ever dreams and lives
I dreamed I slept on the ocean bed
And a silent grave of silver sand
Rolled in the sway of an iron bell
Ive heard it said when they go to sea
On stormy nights you can hear her moan
She tolls for the mourning of her own death
And echoes here on the village stones
On the waves of silver I dreamed of gold
I dreamed of the moment of my own death
That no one ever dreams and lives
That no one ever dreams and lives
That no one ever dreams and lives
song performed by by Marillion
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Bell In The Sea, The
(music: marillion lyrics: steve hogarth & john helmer)
I dreamed i rolled on the ocean floor
In the sunken bones of a broken ship
On the shadow line where whispers creep
To the world above from the world beneath
On waves of silver i dreamed of gold
'till i lost the peace that dreaming gives
I dreamed of the moment of my own death
That no one ever dreams and lives
I dreamed i sailed to the mirrored edge
Of that murky world for an iron bell
That dragged me down to the ocean bed
And rang to mark where my shadow fell
On waves of silver i dreamed of gold
'till i lost the peace that dreaming gives
I dreamed of the moment of my own death
That no one ever dreams and lives
That no one ever dreams and lives
That no one ever dreams and lives
I dreamed i slept on the ocean bed
And a silent grave of silver sand
Rolled in the sway of an iron bell
I've heard it said when they go to sea
On stormy nights you can hear her moan
She tolls for the mourning of her own death
And echoes here on the village stones
On the waves of silver i dreamed of gold
I dreamed of the moment of my own death
That no one ever dreams and lives
That no one ever dreams and lives
That no one ever dreams and lives
song performed by by Marillion
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Cancer Signs
Looked over,
Passed by,
Forgotten about.
Why try?
Poked,
Prodded;
Torn apart,
Damn it, Doctor,
Have a heart.
Daughter,
Sister,
Aunt,
Wife,
Mother,
Friend,
All means nothing in the end.
Mind weak
Body sore
Can't stand chemo any more.
Here one minute,
But here no more.
The bitter taste of death,
Denial,
Anger,
Depression,
Acceptance.
Constant prayers of repentance
Mourning seems so very endless....
poem by Denice Robinson
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The Patteran
From over the leagues of ice and snow, and the miles of scorching sand;
From back of the days of long ago, and the lonely sea and land—
To the end of the world and our Gipsy race, to the death of our dark-eyed line,
I have set the lines on my children’s palms as my fathers did on mine,
That the world shall know and my name shall glow in the light of the aftershine—
I have set the lines on my children’s palms as my fathers did on mine.
I have given them health and strength, pure blood, clear skins for a glorious youth;
I have set in their souls contempt for sham, and a deathless regard for truth;
I have bequeathed the spirit to fight, I have given the will to rise,
And the slumbering fires of Hate and Love in their dreaming, dreaming eyes.
That the world shall know and my name shall glow in the light of the aftershine,
I have set the lines on my children’s palms as my fathers did on mine.
I have given the love for their native land, wherever that land may be
(My children came from the East, my friends, and round by the Northern Sea),
And a son of a son of mine enemy, to the end of his treacherous line,
Shall be stricken to earth, if he dare but speak, by a son of a son of mine.
That the world shall know and my name shall glow in the light of the aftershine,
I have set the lines on my children’s palms as my fathers did on mine.
poem by Henry Lawson
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The Box From The Attic
A Father's Medals World War One
The wrist band from a stillborn son
The first picture of the two (now three)
An Old Irish Fiddle, Left to me
My Rugby Jersey old and Blue
My Son’s first Rugby Jersey too
A silver frame, the self same smile
My wife’s Pennant (She ran the mile)
War department Telegram (a death)
My wife’s Mothers Christening dress
my first handcraft (a mat of reeds)
My Father’s Mothers Rosary beads
A picture of our son at play
a memento of my graduation day
My wife’s Pearl backed wedding book
Big Peter's number (what a crook)
The box is almost empty now
Forgotten memories, but how?
The pride, the Lose, the answered Call
The pain, the joy, I knew them all.
poem by Bill Mitton
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You're A Movie
I fearlessly walk into battle
With a shine on my boots and my teeth
Never flinch, never blink, never rattle
My blood is like ice underneath
Oh, I'm the reincarnation of Patton
And I've got Hannibal's heart in my chest
God told me I would have rivalled
Alexander the Great at his best
(You're a movie)
Quite
(You're a movie)
Yes
(The exception)
That's right
(You're the final kind)
(You're a movie)
More of an epic
(Please include me, send us to the line)
Mm, that's right
Very good
Bullets repel off my medals
And my men are in awe when I speak
All chaos my strategy settles
My mere presence gives strength to the weak
For me it seems really alarming
I'm really just only a man
With five million sheep in this army
I seem to be the only one fit to command
(You're a movie)
I'm quite aware
(You're a movie)
Yeah
(The exception)
Oh, you've noticed
(You're the final kind)
(You're a movie)
Hey, very true
(Please include me, send us to the line)
Mm, if you're lucky
I must go now and save the world
Move aside mere drop of water, let the ocean pass
(You're a movie)
Quite right
(You're a movie)
(The exception)
(You're the final kind)
(You're a movie)
(Please include me)
Mm hmm
(Please include me)
(Please include me)
Possibly
(Send us to the lines)
Good man
(Send us to the lines)
I'll be at the front, please
(Front of the lines)
Oh, alright Follow me
Another day, another victory
Another
Gold, stripe, another star
Really quite boring sometimes
I wish they'd send someone equal to my strategies
What a guy
I'm really quite a guy
song performed by by Alice Cooper
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Boxers
Losing in front of your home crowd
You wish the ground
Would open up and take you down
And will time never pass ?
Will time never pass for us ?
Your weary wife is walking away
Your nephew is true
Well, he thinks the world of you
And I have to close my eyes
Oh ...
Losing in front of your home town
The crowd call your name
They love you all the same
The sound, the smell, and the spray
You will take them all away
And theyll stay
Till the grave
Your weary wife is walking away
Your nephew, is true
Well, he thinks the world of you
And I have to close my eyes
Oh ...
Losing in your home town
Hell is the bell
That will not ring again
You will return one day
Because of all the things that you see
When your eyes close
Your weary wife - walking away
Your nephew, its true
He still thinks the world of you
And I have to dry my eyes
Oh ...
song performed by by Morrissey
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Isandlwana
Scarlet coats, and crash o' the band,
The grey of a pauper's gown,
A soldier's grave in Zululand,
And a woman in Brecon Town.
My little lad for a soldier boy,
(Mothers o' Brecon Town!)
My eyes for tears and his for joy
When he went from Brecon Town,
His for the flags and the gallant sights
His for the medals and his for the fights,
And mine for the dreary, rainy nights
At home in Brecon Town.
They say he's laid beneath a tree,
(Come back to Brecon Town!)
Shouldn't I know? -- I was there to see:
(It's far to Brecon Town!)
It's me that keeps it trim and drest
With a briar there and a rose by his breast --
The English flowers he likes the best
That I bring from Brecon Town.
And I sit beside him -- him and me,
(We're back to Brecon Town.)
To talk of the things that used to be
(Grey ghosts of Brecon Town);
I know the look o' the land and sky,
And the bird that builds in the tree near by,
And times I hear the jackals cry,
And me in Brecon Town.
Golden grey on miles of sand
The dawn comes creeping down;
It's day in far off Zululand
And night in Brecon Town.
poem by John McCrae
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Clarence Fawcett
The sudden death of Eugene Carman
Put me in line to be promoted to fifty dollars a month,
And I told my wife and children that night.
But it didn't come, and so I thought
Old Rhodes suspected me of stealing
The blankets I took and sold on the side
For money to pay a doctor's bill for my little girl.
Then like a bolt old Rhodes accused me,
And promised me mercy for my family's sake
If I confessed, and so I confessed,
And begged him to keep it out of the papers,
And I asked the editors, too.
That night at home the constable took me
And every paper, except the Clarion,
Wrote me up as a thief
Because old Rhodes was an advertiser
And wanted to make an example of me.
Oh! well, you know how the children cried,
And how my wife pitied and hated me,
And how I came to lie here.
poem by Edgar Lee Masters
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A Doctor’s Mistake
As towns flourish and teem with life
Of all colours and creeds
In one of them lived with his wife
A doctor, with certain needs
Life and practice were more than good
He’d friends on every side
Yet took to drugs so oft he could
Which soon would turn the tide
One day a bad mistake was made
A fault he tried to hide
With pills a man in bed was laid
Who very nearly died
His medicine was wrong of course
The doctor was so high
The dose he gave could kill a horse
A man would surely die
For many years the doctor’s wife
Had prayed both night and day
For God to change her husband’s life
And take the drugs away
Her prayers were heard God saw how sad
His daughter lived with tears
Although her husband’s deeds were bad
God freed them of their fears
The doctor’s heart began to melt
He joined his wife in prayer
“Oh Lord my God what guilt I’ve felt
Since knowing You are there”
Salvation came because a wife
Had knelt in fervent prayer
Not only had her husband life
But now! Life’s Truth they share.
poem by Michael P. Johnson
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