Wilfred Owen – Dulce et Decorum Est

Posted on by Opher

Wilfred Owen is one of my favourite poets. He lived through the terrors of the 1st World War and was killed right at the end. He saw terrible things and suffered post traumatic stress. He also wrote the most moving poems about the reality and horrors of war. Nobody has done it better. I am always moved by graphic depictions. They are real. He captures it.

He went to war full of ideals of chivalry, bravery and idealism. He saw the slaughter and reality and realised it was all a lie – one big lie. There is nothing noble or valiant about dying for someone else’s ideas of what is right. War is about power

This poem captures the unglamorous reality of the weariness, fear, terror and disgusting degradation and dehumanisation of war.

When I ran the Remembrance Service at school this is the poem I read. There were some who said it was too graphic. How can war be talked about in kind words?

Lest we forget.

Dulce et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
It is sweet and just to die for one’s country.

Tower of London Poppies – The 1st World War 1914-1918

Posted on by Opher

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The sea of red poppies at the Tower of London were a powerful reminder of the senseless industrial slaughter of human beings.

10 million military personnel were butchered by high explosive.

7 million civilians were also killed in violently.

The poppy was adopted to remind us of the gruesome stupidity of war where weaponry has now reached a sophistication where a missile can be targeted from thousands of miles away and kill thousands of people, where a nuclear device can kill millions. There is nothing heroic about it

The poppy is a reminder that there are better ways. Violence is primitive behaviour.

It is also salutary to consider that the flu epidemic that followed the first World War killed between 20 and 40 million – more than were killed in both World Wars.

Perhaps we should be putting our efforts into solving the population explosion before the next virus disposes of us!

Build a better zeitgeist!