Lost

hopefully it is

It's clear that war leaves much more than the dead behind! Very poignant poem celtic.

But a lot of people like war. It makes them money.

It makes my heart and brain bleed.

A stunning collection of words, Celticman.  

"a pick-and-mix of greed and our need

to stay above the ground,"

So many powerful lines... clever.  

Thank you. 

And, congratulations on the Cherries - very well deserved!

Stark, passionate and beautiful - this is our Monday Pick of the Day.

Picture by Helgi Halldorsson, free to use at Wikimedia Commons: https://tinyurl.com/3zdvb8xy

Every time I read this, another bit leaps out, like
"silence crowded underground" and
"a pick-and-mix of greed and our need / to stay above the ground"

I am listening to a series about WW1 just now, and your poem resonates so much with that, too.

"keeping trouble at bay in places / we couldn’t pronounce and held no sway. / All those angry faces o’er there. / Who won the war? Who kept score?"

BRILLIANT poem, to be read over and over again, though it's about all wars, it's about one person, too, in the bar fights, struggling to make it all add up. So much compassion

a beautifully poised poem. Worthy of the award.

"Our grief and failure, terminal—

if love is not eternal."

Oof...those closing lines. 

There's a resonance in so much of this, of course.

Bleak but beautiful in its bleakness.

Soldiers are left with a darkness they can't easily escape, no war is worth this casualty and yet politicians decide on war as a solution too easily. My heart breaks for your neighbor. I'm not sure how to help them find goodness and light in the world again, but I hope somehow they will. 

Good poem. I like the words you have used. It does suggest the casualties of war and the inconclusive nature of these events. As is often the case your words can often be taken in more ways than one, or leave us wondering if we have the full point, but it makes us think. Deep!

My brother was a Viet Nam vet. At age 20 was caught up in a land mine that almost killed him. Shrapnel scars down his neck a constant reminder. He spent six months in recovery at a hospital in Japan. I still feel the shock waves I felt as a 13 year-old in 1967 when we got the news. He never spoke of it. It was only in his elder years that he took to visiting wounded vets at a local VA hospital in Florida.

Writing this just is making me weep a bit. I carry it with me every day. Bloody fucking war.

So powerful, for me this poem ranks 'up there' with the lyrics of a much revered Aussie song, written about returning Vietnam veterans called "I was only 19."  Both written in truth by someone who was there. No-one who wasn't will ever understand, but your words shine a light - a lesson...  well done Celticman.