christmas truce, 1914

[mnaz]

christmas truce, 1914
men shared a meal and a smoke
ripped out each others’ souls at daybreak
what a difference a day makes

papa lied about his age to enlist
to go fight in the grisly trenches
no pit, no glory, no crimson allegory
in blood and steel and pyre

europe wrote the book of invasions
genghis too, with the book of sun tzu
more room for ghosts on the asian plains
not so in europe, a little hemmed in

christmas truce, fellowship in hell
ragged ghosts in their trenches
in ritual unspeakable perpetual
we teach the children well

[revolutionrabbit]

was just thinking about WWI, like I wanted to read another book about that time, I read Journey to The End of Night by Celine about ten years ago now, that was quite a journey just reading the whole book.So i was just think about WWI and wondering about a good book about that time and conflict, I did actually read a book that was about the war that was a factual account that described the battles in France.And today i see some thing on the internet, can't remember what it was, just saying something about mud and rat invested trenches.About how dumb it was or something to that effect.

I think as a metaphor, the idea of being in one of those trenches, seems like, I mean like if you were a poet and you were there just trying to survive
like everybody else, and of course there is that great last scene in All Quiet On the Western Front, where the German soldier reaches for the butterfly.I don't know why for some reason I can see those trenches and imagine myself there as a young poet, and still see some strange relation to the times, and Freud and Darwin and the end of the last century and the beginning of perpetual modern warfare.It's this whole image just going around in my head, this animal machine eating itself to get out of the mind trap and barbwire across no man's land like the ultimate metaphor for the split between the two hemispheres of the brain and the human psyche, and in the current media frenzy you can see that same trench rat mentality, like these guys only memory is that moment before the sergeant blows their whistle and the mud rats scrabble over the top.

Also you can see the same siege mentality with poets kinda like they are superstitions believers in God because they are in the trenches of various schools of thought that prevails in the published poet world, or the very odd world of some one web site, owned by some one person, that some others hang out on, like this other site I was on recently for a number of months, where the little group tries to tell each other how they should rewrite their poems, like they are self-appointed experts, and now they blow their whistle and their off and running to see who will survive the air-cooled critique gunners.

[Barry]

Dig your poem, Marc.

And dig your whole metaphor rap, rabbit.

It's almost as if...almost as if...almost as if...all those old Hindu mystics were right, isn't it? None of this is really happening. Not outside at least. It's all just a reflection, an image, an illusion, a metaphor if you will, for what is eternally going on inside. And the war, while it's different for everyone, each individual, it's the same for us all collectively.

Yeah, been doing a little reading on WWI, the war to end all wars, myself of late. I spend a lot of time just shaking my head and plunging on.

"I was doing time in the universal mind..."
JDM


Peace,
Barry

[mnaz]

thanks revolution, barry. yeah, what's odd is how totenkopf (aka perezozo aka vlad99 aka blue in green etc, from the old LK days and here) used to constantly cite hemingway, and even the grim journals of verdun as "real literature, sufficient to put poesy to shame," or something like that. of course hemingway's later quotes on WW1 and trench warfare seem to basically disown the enterprise, but that doesn't matter of course, once the icon is cast.

yeah, after writing this it occurred to me how common the "in the trenches" metaphor is, meaning the hard and grim "dirty work" in general-- like the line battles in football (dug-in turf battles without kids literally turned into hamburger). in my talks long ago with dad, he supported vietnam and most cold war policy because he didn't want to live under communist domination. well, no. who wants that? but I told him I also didn't want to live under domination of paranoia and greed.

yes, mystics of all stripes. the true battle is within? and it seems the endless back and forth of empires, the endless energy drain of large organized aggression at some point starts to threaten the whole underlying platform, especially in this "population bomb" we're experiencing...