The Thousandth Regiment - 12. "The world's adrift some placid evening waves"

After what the soldier has seen and lived, the passion about being - about life without trenches or artillery barrages - must be very great. And so this poem shows us, as it shakes us with its exuberant vitality. Thank you again for another of these gems. 

4 hours ago, Lyssa said:

" We are so passionate about being " this line sums the whole poem up, doesn`t it. Feeling the simple need to be, to live another day. How painful, how basic and how human this is.  The atmosphere and scenery which Hans created in its dark and smoke filled facets arises through your artful translation in my minds eye. 🙂

Thank you, Lyssa, for your help on this poem and sharing your thoughts here. To me this is a very sensual and erotic poem. Under the ring of stars, men like Hans -- who have no need or interest in the pale-fleshed bordello ladies -- can lay out in the tall summer grass and watch the stars. They can also, hidden in the night, indulge in suppressed longing for ultimate connection with one another. Being "drunk" makes a tidy excuse for not remembering what was shared and felt. And yet, Hans seems to be saying if these connections, man to man and direct, make it past the fading of dawn, then a bleached and honest life can be led. 

I love this poem  

12 minutes ago, Parker Owens said:

After what the soldier has seen and lived, the passion about being - about life without trenches or artillery barrages - must be very great. And so this poem shows us, as it shakes us with its exuberant vitality. Thank you again for another of these gems. 

Thank you, Parker. I know there is much I miss in these poems. I'd get these literary allusions if I were an expert on German literature, but I'm not. But now and then, Hans flashes a brilliance easy for me to see from English-language references. Here he shows his love for Walt Whitman! Not only with the "O!"s of each line of the second Quatrain, but in presenting language that's choppy and dramatic. These trait of Whitman's are also essential elements of that poet's work. Thus I have tried to bring a certain Whitmanesque wordiness to these four lines in English. 

Thank you again for reading and supporting my efforts with this war poems. Muah

these men are stripped of their humanity for most of their time serving ... yet here on leave they claw it back. These poems show that, truly, all that matters to us really is our connection to those we love. in these times sex and closeness is all that keeps us sane and human.

11 hours ago, Mikiesboy said:

these men are stripped of their humanity for most of their time serving ... yet here on leave they claw it back. These poems show that, truly, all that matters to us really is our connection to those we love. in these times sex and closeness is all that keeps us sane and human.

Thank you, Tim. Naturally, I'm just coming to understated these poems too, but several times Hans makes an explicit connection between human sexual expression against the backdrop of the night sky. Perhaps at moments like these, alone or with colleagues, the purer essence of what it simply means to have human life is confronted. It brings out a metaphor (or a reality) of how sex can connect us to the primal and spiritual at the same time. These are fascinating poems, and gain a whole dimension when he introduces elements of religion into them, which he sometimes does. 

Thank you, as always, for reading and sharing your thoughts ❤️