Writing WWII Poems [M - V]

[CB Shin]

Unbeknownst to many people, there are quite a few War Poems, specifically about WWII (especially in the SAS). Anyways, these types of poems always intrigued me because of the struggles/heroism they represent and I was wondering if anyone wrote any themselves and would like to share. Here's a short one about WWII veteran Jakob (Yakov) Pavlov, a Russian Sergeant in Stalingrad.

"Hero of the Soviet Union"

Blackened dust and whithered ash
Through cold and hurt, life and death
Does thy sergeant come for thee
Cunning, fearless and skilled
Leading thy troops to battle
Under sky and stars, sun and moon
who never rests with shut eyes
wrathful to thy foe, loyal to thy master
Hero of the Soviet Union, Jakob Pavlov

It's not very good since I wrote it pretty quickly off the top my head. By the way, Jakob Pavlov is still alive today as an Archmandriate Kyrill, which is a priest of the Russian Orthodox Church (He discovered his God somewhere in the middle of the war and devastation).

[Drix D'Zanth]

[quote]"Hero of the Soviet Union"

Blackened dust and [b]withered[/b] ash
Through cold and hurt, life and death
Does thy sergeant come for thee
Cunning, fearless and skilled
Leading thy troops to battle
Under sky and stars, sun and moon
who never rests with shut eyes
wrathful to thy foe, loyal to thy master
Hero of the Soviet Union, Jakob Pavlov[/quote]

Heh, it's interesting to see a poem covering that era of world history. Quite a welcome change, I may add. The poem itself seems bare, in my opinion, I think you could have afforded more content when describing the merits of Jakob (what's so spectacular about him?). The descriptions are a bit trite, and there seems to be no rhyme pattern... or syllable pattern. That's alright if you were doing something extract, however, I was thrown off by your use of older english expressions "thee, thy" which usually accompany some sort of iamb.

A few problems(besides the "withered" ash):

"Does thy sergeant come for thee"
This line really disrupted the flow of the poem. I kept jumping back to it and trying to figure out what you were saying here. Is it a question or a statement? i.e. "Does thy sergeant (not Pavlov) come for thee?" or "(he) Does thy sergeant (Pavlov) come for thee." I couldn't figure the poem out. The first option seems more reasonable as the poem appears to be a combination of 2nd person (talking to Pavlov directly, it appears) and descriptive elements.

"wrathful to thy foe, loyal to thy master"
should be: "wrathful to thy foe, loyal to [b]thine[/b] master" While nothing is concrete in language (old english is no exception) it appears as this is the most commonly accepted grammatical use when "your" appears twice in a sentence.

Keep writing :D

[CB Shin]

I told you I wrote this in haste. :laugh: Anyways, thanks for the constructive critisizm and advise on this poem and let me address a few of those problems. First of all, my bad on "withered". The "Does thy Sergeant come for thee" line is actually describing Jakob himself in a statement (strange, I know). Also, the poem was meant to be more vague and interpreted individually by the reader instead of me just coming out and describing all of his merits. By the way, if your knowledge of this era is sufficient enough, why don't u write a poem Drix?

[Mitch]

[size=1]This is quite an old poem I found of my own when making my index thread.[/size]

[b]The Looming[/b]
the fist protrudes
upward,
its fingers balled tightly
to one another
in a crushing fist

the arm
looms under
the hand
the veins
of the arm
protrude

and the fist
opens,
its fingers loosen,
the palm is revealed,
and the fingers
begin moving back
until the fingers
strain and bend
the ways they
shouldn't.

they fall in
from the palm
pointing down.

the arm
collapses
the veins
secede
and all has stopped
and is on the ground.

a drop
of water
is frame-stopped
in time
as it hits
the floor

its form is a Y
like a corset wearer's.
the light
shines
and
the water
looks like
a balled fist
the arm protruding
out.

then time
begins
and the drop
of water
secedes.

a mushroom
lies in the wild
of a forest's growth
on the bark
of a tree
whose age
is limitless.

the toadstool's
top looms out
and shadows its stem
the sun falls down
between the trees
and a woodpecker
pecks at the bark
in a knick-knack of sound.
the mushroom
is found
by a scavenger.
eaten
it secedes.

a ballet dancer
swerves in a twirl
and does a handstand.
her dress, with fringe
makes an umbrella
as her legs, thin and bone,
grace outward.
her body is small as a twig,
it is overshadowed by the dress's
blooming fringe
looming out.
she loses balance
tumbling to the floor
she cowers in her hands
leaves from the curtain
and secedes.

an umbrella
held in a Frenchman's hand
repels rain
as its top looms
over its holder's head.
he twirls it
as he walks with
his wife through the narrow
streets.
and through an alley
the umbrella is seen
waggling along.
he secedes.

a muscleman's neck
shoulders a bobbing head.
the veins stick out
in strain.
he moves a metal dumbbell
up with all his force.
his hair moves in strands.
and his head looms out
from his neck's hold.
he lies down on the chair
and tired he secedes.

a looming cumulo-pileus
cloud sombers the sky.
its dense mass
bulges subtle semi-circles
of its fluff.
its top
is smooth,
without subtle semi-circles,
and looms above its mass.
the cloud
is long and wide
and heaped-up.
on the ground
the cloud casts shadows
that leer in the eye.
the cloud is a malicious
castle sky.
it crowds
and spans far away.

a president
in distress
and the cold war
is in effect.
missles' heads
penetrate on the land.
glaring up at the United States
the heads hold much
in their metal hulls.

but they are so hollow
when hitten on with a hand.
and this crisis is averted
in the president's hands.

and there the bomb falls,
like a stork dropping a baby
from its jaws.
like a fist, slamming a punch
to a face.
like a meteor to destroy
the dinosaurs.

and there the bomb falls,
like a metal slug
from a bullet
hitting a soldier's
head.
and going deep in
to his brain's side.
there the bomb falls,
like Newton's apple
falling on his head.
like a hurtling heaven
falling from the sky.
like a scabbed-winged angel
ready to die.
like a Kamikaze
ready to sacrifice
it all in a bang.
like a ballet dancer
handstanding freefalls
in the air.

there it falls.
and a cloud
like a mushroom
blooming from
the sky.
colossal,
it looms its ruinous eye.
rains down fallout
from the sky.
atoms go off
in a chain reaction
of time.
like fireworks
on the fourth of July.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki
die.
the mushroom cloud
subsides.

buildings stand
in shackle ruins.
innocent citizens
lick their wounds
but die from poisoning
radioactive blooms.

lives are saved,
Harry S. Truman glooms.
and the devastation
hardens and ends
going into a cocoon
to spin its way
to being remade.

[size=1]It is also worth it to check out [u][url=http://www.otakuboards.com/showthread.php?t=37730](link)the thread(link)[/url][/u]. Radaghast analyzed this poem and made some very astute observations about what many of the symbols of this poem mean.[/size]

[DragonBlood]

(Drix D'Zanth, I think its more like Middle English, "Old English" is more like German than curent English, most people simply called Middle English Old English. Or maybe I'm wrong. ;) )

"And When He Gets to Heaven
To Saint Peter he will tell:
'One more soldier reporting sir;
I've served my time in hell'."

I doubt thats the complete thing, but I know it had to do with WWII. If you know the rest (or were to find it) tell me please.