The Thousandth Regiment - 10. "Your straggly seats, do blaze like leopard spots"

Thank you for the opening comment. I agree, this is an angry and frustrated poem. It reads very martial and when I read it the first time, I was shocked. But then I started to put it in context to the volume of poems he wrote and tried to hold my "emotional ear" a little back. I think, he describes very blunt, what he sees and did not mask the cruelty he recognizes and hears. His other poems make clear -- at least for me -- that he sawe humans as humans and the horror of war crashing down over all of them equally.

Thank you again for your efford my dear friend.

8 minutes ago, Lyssa said:

Thank you for the opening comment. I agree, this is an angry and frustrated poem. It reads very martial and when I read it the first time, I was shocked. But then I started to put it in context to the volume of poems he wrote and tried to hold my "emotional ear" a little back. I think, he describes very blunt, what he sees and did not mask the cruelty he recognizes and hears. His other poems make clear -- at least for me -- that he sawe humans as humans and the horror of war crashing down over all of them equally.

Thank you again for your efford my dear friend.

Thank you, Lyssa. I agree that this poem in the context of all the others still speaks of a collective "we" on all sides of the conflict. Nevertheless, the switching of the war from a a quick series of moves and countermoves to a protracted game of Russian roulette had to affect all soldiers equally. Even though he derides the higher-up for the war in general, and the decision to dig in, I know he still understands the "other side" is made up of his classic "we" too.

Thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts on this challenging poem.    

So many images here recall the Western Front: the stink of war in the trenches, the endless churning of blasted mud, and the thousands of dead men planted with the brilliantly described “iron seed corn.” The casualties were on a scale we cannot begin to grasp now, a hundred years hence. Hans’ anger and bitterness are hardly out of place in such a setting. 

On 8/19/2019 at 2:31 PM, Parker Owens said:

So many images here recall the Western Front: the stink of war in the trenches, the endless churning of blasted mud, and the thousands of dead men planted with the brilliantly described “iron seed corn.” The casualties were on a scale we cannot begin to grasp now, a hundred years hence. Hans’ anger and bitterness are hardly out of place in such a setting. 

Thank you, Parker. With this poem, there is a turning point in the collection. I'm sure the morphing of the war into a protracted one turned Hans' mind to a spiritual seeking of "why." From this point on, many of the poems speak to a vision of a post-war world where democracy would fly its colors instead of kings.  

Thank you again for reading and commenting on this poem. I appreciate it