Commentaries on the Burden of War

"You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you." -- Leon Trotsky

War is kind
Weep not maiden, war is kind
Impined the war correspondent
Despondent for his lack of mettle
But emboldened to admit
He knew the horror of battle
Watching from afar so he
Could comfort the living on
How war is so kind.

Honor and glory beckons
The cause is just therefore
Duty whispers 'lo' to the soldier
So he can volunteer
For daring deeds in
The arms of death
He turns his back on wisdom
and gives one gallant gush
all the while whispering 'I can'.

Riding into the valleys of hell
against those most terrifying odds
They faced their foe undaunted
But do they wonder
Should they falter and run... no!
The day will be theirs
for war is kind, so kind
That poets will laud them
whilst they die in droves.

I wonder if the poets knew
What sort of burden was created
This image the soldiers
Had to face
Generation after generation gone
Inspired by words of those
who never faced death's rendevous

He loved his duty and honor
to fight in one more just war
In order to be a noble man
So he can face his love
Show her how much he cared
Enough to leave her broken
Still she took comfort
That he loved her so very much
And yet, in the end...
He loved his honor more.

Dank trenches in Flanders fields
many await a gruesome end
still espousing the virtues of wars past
Pressed against the walls, waiting to
Charge into that deadly space
resolving to stop the other
for they know their duty
Even if the world abandons reason
They stand firm and simply die.

An outpost in the deep of dark
Laden with the blood of the fallen
is forgotten except for a few
Those who scratched and clawed
At the face of death
Watching their comrades fall
In a brief terrible moment
Not for glory, nor for new lands
Only because someone said 'go'.

I dream of those honored dead
And hope they forgive us our
Need to comment and posture
On the soldier's burden
One that we have not faced
One we should never want to
I dream of remembrance...

From bloodied creeks and streams at
Sharpsburg and Bull Run
To sieges at Calais and Hue
I long for an absolution
in the Teutonburg forest
at the fall of Vera Cruz
the terror of Gallipoli
and the madness of Verdun.
It will never come...

War is kind
If she will not weep
Perhaps I shall.
For it will not end
The ruin we have created
cannot end.

Author's note: Some may have noticed the reference to specific poems in this work. Therefore, the following is a list of the authors and their works that helped inspire the poem:

James Russell Lowell- 'The Thousand Line Poem'
Stephen Crane- 'War is Kind'
Alfred, Lord Tennyson- 'Charge of the Light Brigade'
Alan Seeger- 'I Have a Rendevous With Death'
Richard Lovelace- 'To Lucinda, Going Off to War' (I might have butchered the title on that one)
Ralph Waldo Emerson- 'Voluntaries'

Oh, and for my own perspective, one of my poems is referenced as well :)