Service and Memorial Day... For the children.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

Raw Recruit


They said to me: "Thou shalt not kill,"

And well I understood.

"Thy brother's blood thou shalt not spill,"

They spake, and it was good.

And then I could not understand,

Yet had to do their will;

Cold steel they put into my hand,

Saying: "Go forth and kill.


"Go forth with rage of race and slay;

Pile up the corpses for

What's murder called in Peace - alway

Is hollowed in war.

The Church has blest your bloody blade,

The which in peace is cursed;

So go forth, son, all unafraid,

And do your bloody worst."


What's wrong in Peace in War is right,

So I will do their will,

And bear me bravely in the fight,

And kill and kill and kill.....

Yet as I brave the battle test

With dripping sword in hand,

Proving me equal with the best....

Christ, help me understand!



Robert Service

As true today as it was then.

(Please don't move this to the lounge)

[EFerrari]

1. The naming of parts

Wilfred Owen.


:hug:

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

2. Well read, Sfecpat2000.

That era brought out more than a few great poets.

:hug:

[EFerrari]

3. The Magician Suspends the Children

'The Magician Suspends the Children'

With this charm I keep the boy at six
and the girl fast at five
almost safe behind the four
walls of family. We three
are a feathery totem I tattoo
against time: I'll be one

again. Joy here is hard-won
but possible. Protector of six
found toads, son, you feel too
much, my Halloween mouse. Your five
finger exercises predict no three
quarter time gliding for

you. Symphonic storms are the fore-
cast, nothing unruffled for my wun-
derkind. Have two children: make three
journeys upstream. Son, at six
you run into angles where five
lets you curve, let me hold onto

your fingers in drugstores. Too
intent on them, you're before
or behind me five
paces at least. Let no one
tie the sturdy boat of your six
years to me the grotesque, the three

headed mother. More than three
times you'll deny me. And my cockatoo,
my crested girl, how you cry to be six.
Age gathers on your fore-
head with that striving. Everyone
draws your lines and five

breaks out like a rash, five
crouches, pariah of the three
o'clock male rendezvous. Oh won-
derful girl, my impromptu
rainbow, believe it: you'll be four-
teen before you're six.

This is the one abracadabra I know to
keep us three. keep you five and six.
Grow now. Sing. Fly. Do what you're here for.

Carole Oles

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

5. Beautiful...

III. The Dead

Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead!
There's none of these so lonely and poor of old,
But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold
These laid the world away; poured out the red
Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be
Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene,
That men call age; and those who would have been,
Their sons, they gave, their immortality.

Blow, bugles, blow! They brought us, for our dearth,
Holiness, lacked so long, and Love, and Pain.
Honour has come back, as a king, to earth,
And paid his subjects with a royal wage;
And Nobleness walks in our ways again;
And we have come into our heritage.

Rupert Brooke

[EFerrari]

4. But the Iraqis

Who are they

Strange people

with stange habits

who shoot at our children

under fire.


That's what we know.

What have we ever known.

Women can't walk
in daylight anymore.

Children can't walk
to school anymore.

(Somewhere Hussien wonders where his contract
went wrong. But, there are drugs for that.)

This is a democracy
gone very very wrong.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

6. Nice. Now you force me to write my own.

There's fresh roses in my house

today.

While on the other side of the world

My children die
and are maimed.

Fighting for,
fighting for,
fighting for...

Dear God,
I have no idea.

My children die each day this year
while my roses do so well.

My children die each day this year
as I play with my dog.

My children die each day this year
as I shop for movies.

My roses grow so well this year
as my children die.

[EFerrari]

7. "We are born with the dead"

Eliot said

He was right. Let's

make him wrong.

:hug:

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

8. i can only hope we can.

:toast:

[EFerrari]

10. We will.

:hug:

[proud2BlibKansan]

9. Wow you guys - great thread

:yourock:

[EFerrari]

11. Fork it over. A patch of sanity.

:hug:

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

12. Okay... More Rupert

The Treasure

When colour goes home into the eyes,
And lights that shine are shut again,
With dancing girls and sweet bird's cries
Behind the gateways of the brain;
And that no-place which gave them birth, shall close
The rainbow and the rose:—

Still may Time hold some golden space
Where I'll unpack that scented store
Of song and flower and sky and face,
And count, and touch, and turn them o'er,
Musing upon them: as a mother, who
Has watched her children all the rich day through,
Sits, quiet-handed, in the fading light,
When children sleep, ere night.

August 1914.

[proud2BlibKansan]

15. If you insist

:hug:

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

16. Thx, and a bump for the morning crowd.

[EFerrari]

13. Humbly, for our amazing DUers --

Grow now. Sing. Fly. Do what you're here for.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

14. You're absolutely right.

Should be more of it.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

17. A memorial day kick.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

18. One last kick for the day.