Photo by Max Sulik on Unsplash
Today’s entry is taken from the National Endowment for the Arts in honor of Veterans Day. The original post from the Art Works Blog can be found here.
To all of our country’s veterans, thank you for your service.
Poems for Veterans Day
“Those nights I heard shouts from the dark
of my parents’ room, he was back down
in his foxhole, barking orders, taking fire…”
“At the Vietnam War Memorial” by Robert Dana
“…we’ve come to find
your brother’s name, etched
in the long black muster
of sixteen years of war—”
“Thanks” by Yusef Komunyakaa
“…Thanks
for the vague white flower
that pointed to the gleaming metal
reflecting how it is to be broken…”
“Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen
“Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs…”
“Phantom Noise” by Brian Turner
“There is this ringing hum this
bullet-borne language ringing
shell-fall and static this late-night
ringing of threadwork and carpet ringing”
“The War After the War” by Debora Greger
“…he’d take out a small gray notebook
and show his eldest daughter
how, in pencil, in tiny hurried script,
he kept the names of those who died around him.”
“Spoken From the Hedgerows” by Jorie Graham
“If death comes, friend, let it come quick.
And don’t play the hero, there is no past or future. Don’t play
the hero. Ok. Let’s go. Move out. Say goodbye.”
