Funny how some I read by Paul Fussell back in 1976 has stuck with me.
On Being Asked for a Poem About Mental Illness,
He Thinks of Passchendaele, August 1917
4:00 AM. Restive sleep ends.
Farting, objectless dream-erections,
dream-weeping, oh Jesus
I want to go home.
Filth in everything, orders and
ordure everywhere. No imagining
the outhouses: they will become life,
old men will die in 1960
still trapped in the stench.
Fear lives even in the trench lice.
To rise and peer over the top
is to demand disaster.
It is irresistible
to peer at one's coming fate
300 yards across the mud.
Curse the dead mule
that blocks your view.
Summer crawls in the flesh,
madness, no control,
you are pledged to this Thing
become your life
no escape except to go mad
and answer the blowing whistle
Go over the top
the term for coming generations
for it is your duty
your horror
your life and maybe death
unoptioned
out of control no control
obedience to the force
that drives you forward
for this moment endless.
KTW/7-27-05
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