In Response to Wilford Owen

W. Owens Anthem for Doomed Youth

The imagery and sounds of this poem are painted with the blood of the young as the primary pigment with just a touch of gunmetal grays and the musical accompaniment is sung by a choir of grieving mothers accompanied by the screeching of artillery shells. I was really moved by this poem and I can’t help relating it to our nations present adventure in Mesopotamia. There is no glory in battle there are only the dead and those who killed them. Those who pull the triggers in the end find no joy in the deed, only painful memories. Those who die like cattle. This phrase in the opening line of the poem sets the tone of the all of the other lines that follow. These early days of industrialized warfare made the battlefield great-mechanized meat-grinders. Bugles calling them from their sad shires. Come young sons; come become a man join the quest and march with us. Not in the hands, but in the eyes, the holy glimmer of goodbyes. There is something about leaving our place of youth in the service of war that brings a heart near to breaking. Will I return home or will he return home? The question a son asks his father or a mother asks her heart. Not to mention the true young lovers and the poignancy of parting in addition to that painful question. The shrill, demented choirs of the wailing shells singing a sadistic song. The sad shires are the towns filled with those who are left behind sonless. Duske a drawing down of blinds as a final lights out and the stuttering rifles rapid rattle are Browning’s contribution to that days terrible technology of war.

Some when there will be peace on Earth