Bused tourists travel through with cameras,
bound to snap shots of old war memorials
along the Marne, on our plateau of tears.
Some may notice a mound near the banks
where polaroid splashes of wildflowers grow.
A place where those who live in these parts
know resides the remains of trophæum.
Reeking, foreign uniforms happened here,
collapsed in our beds, hugging their rifles.
Breakfast wheat, pails of milk, eggs, fowl;
famished, then full, ready to rapine. Not
our daughters but our lifeblood as sure.
The bull, dark peppered as he bellowed,
running mad, until he sank to his knees.
Herd, clumped and lowing near the barn,
chased by laughing soldiers with sticks,
scattered. Sunrise amnesia trudged them
back for milking – before they joined him.
A smirking soldier who was a farmer in his
own land used the tractor to heap them.
Not worth using precious gasoline to pyre,
there they rotted, ribcaged castles to rats.
Now a flowery displumement of death, only
by chance shall the random tourist capture
ghosts of our invader’s toxic memorials.
Video is of World War I footage in France (has minimal images of death) while the song, “La Chanson de Craonne” plays. You have to go to youtube if you choose to see it.
Björn is today’s host of dVerse’ Poetics. Björn says:
So now please pen yourself a new war poem. I think no matter our own experience I am sure that we fear what war can do, maybe it’s something you meet in the eyes of a refugee, in your nightmares or from reading a book.
image: “Les Bords de la Marne,” painted in 1888 by Paul Cézanne
Tao Talk 
The opening stanza sets the scene so well, Lisa, but does not prepare the reader for what is to come. I like the ‘polaroid splashes of wildflowers’. The flashback comes as a shock, so horrific, especially the ‘ribcaged castles to rats’.
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Kim, I’m not sure where this poem even came from. The idea of people taking tours of where wars were held feels so ghoulish to me and the statues and memorials erected to remember them so empty. Thank you very much for reading and your comment.
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“Some may notice a mound near the banks where polaroid splashes of wildflowers grow,”.. this is particularly moving, as I reflect how nature goes on despite the horrors of war.
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Thank you very much, Sanaa. I remember seeing photos in National Geographic of old weapons of war rusting yet in fields where the invaders are long gone. How can the people ever forget :(
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Wow, Lisa – you write as though you were there! I can quite picture the horrific scene of the ravages of war, hidden beneath the picture-postcard scene for tourists.
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Ingrid, yes, those haunting realities that are always lying just below the surface.
I wanted to let you know I made a comment on your poem a few minutes ago but it didn’t seem to post. If it doesn’t show up, let me know and I’ll try again.
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No problem Lisa, I got your comment, thanks!
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I lived near Craonne. The song is quite subversive given that soldiers were being shot for mutiny at the time. Nothing lived on that plateau, not a single blade of grass. What a tragedy.
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I read the lyrics in English and can see why the well-to-do’s would feel threatened by the truth of the song. To have lived there, Jane, you must have felt the sorrows of the dead :(
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I ended up seeing a doctor about it. Every bit of woodland had bomb craters in it, every hillside had a war cemetery. There was even a German war cemetery overlooking the supermarket. I used to get so depressed by the presence of death.
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A living nightmare is what you are describing. What is a German war cemetery doing in France? They need to get that out of there.
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They came to realise that none of those men who died wanted anything more than to go home. All the countries with war dead have their cemeteries and nobody objected to the Germans burying their dead. There must have been a load of Germans killed on that particular hill and they put the remains in the ground where they found them.
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OMG
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I will have to echo Ron ….. oh my god. You have composed an epic poem …..
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Many thanks, Helen.
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This is powerfully well written Lisa. I especially liked “only by chance shall the random tourist capture ghosts of our invader’s”. Every country has such ghosts looming.
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Thank you very much, Rob. Yes, they do. We have a cemetery north of here (Mouth Cemetery, Montague) that is said to be haunted, by the people in the graves where the headstones are AND by the Native Tribe that was slaughtered just down the hill, near the water :(
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I don’t know that I’d like to be a tourist there! Thought provoking read!
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I know what you mean, Tricia. Thank you.
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Searing.
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Thank you, Alexandra.
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Very disturbing and cruel images come to mind. That is what war does to humans
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Yes, it’s like a dark side of human nature comes out :(
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Indeed.
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Dark side of the world
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A very interesting post! Most don’t see the ugly ghosts of the past. War like race gets glossed over and the atrocities covered and erased.
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Yes, Dwight, I agree. How could they ever forget when each time they passed that spot they remembered?
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Very sad!
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This is the unfortunate truth:
You wrote a wrenching poem, Lisa.
-David
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Thank you, David. I wish it was a poem that didn’t need to be written.
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Indeed.
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There is nothing good to be said about war. You have captured this graphically and true. (K)
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Kerfe, thank you. Wish it wasn’t so :(
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Yes and yes again.
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heart wrenching
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Thank you, Ron.
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Very powerful, Lisa.
The park where I walk nearly every day was a Revolutionary War battle site. There are bodies buried in unmarked graves. I always feel like there could be ghosts. . .
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Thank you, Merril.
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You’re welcome.
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I find it amazing that the most fertile places are on battlefields and places of death… it has always been a thought that scared me and perhaps even sickened me as I imagine the bread growing from flesh.
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It is a jolting reality isn’t it!
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Like in Saana’s poem, every beach has a roseate hue of blood, every field, all our bread.
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So well written….from the beautiful scenery photographed by the tourist, to the reality of what happened there written in chilling details. The bull image is searing. These words, ” ready to rapine. Not our daughters but our lifeblood as sure.” give another definition of the word “rape”. A chilling write.
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Thank you for your thoughtful comment, Lillian. To be aware of the events is chilling enough. To have experienced them must be so much worse. War, a pall on us all.
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You know I always think odd things…but for some reason when I read it I was thinking of a memorial and people talking about it but little did they know someone was there who was at that battle or whatever listening to them… Wouldn’t that be a surreal event?
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Yes, it would! Are you talking about the ghosts of the dead listening? It wouldn’t surprise me at all, Max.
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Well I wasn’t but…THAT is awesome. That is another take.
There was a movie…that I’m trying to find…Charles Branson was at this famous shootout and years later he came back and there was guided tours of the place because of what happened…. and he slipped in unknown and was hearing false things that happened.
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Ah! Yes that would be interesting wouldn’t it. Remember “Unforgiven” and English Bob and his embellishments? One of the best westerns ever made.
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Oh I love that movie! See I read crazy things into writing lol…
One question for you…totally off the wall. I have a movie coming up on the 10th that has a lot of symbolism in it (Vanishing Point)…I thought of you. I was wondering if you ever watched it before? When you brought up symbolism up a few weeks ago I thought of the movie and reviewed it.
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I think I saw it once. Is this with the guy with the fast white car? Barry Newman maybe? It’s been so long ago since seeing it I can’t remember much beyond the car (if it’s even the right movie I”m thinking about.)
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Yes…and they mention it in Death Proof…well the second part of Death Proof is kinda built around it. That is the one with Barry Newman. It’s almost…almost a muscle car movie that meets the Twilight Zone…
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Oh is that white car in Death Proof the same one (or same model) as the one in Vanishing Point? I forgot that. Dangit I wonder if I can fit Death Proof into the draft? (unless you were already going to use it?)
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Yes it is…oh I turned it in…it goes on Feb 10th…Sorry….But I thought of you right away…not because of Death Proof but because of the symbolism. I want to see what you make of some of it. It’s a movie I would love to watch with everyone to ask people what certain things meant to them.
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:) now you have me intrigued…
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Good! Like it or not you are the one I thought of lol. Check your email.
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That was very dark, the contrasting images of “splashes of wildflower and Reeking, foreign uniforms happened here,.., hugging rifles.” That was very intense. You aced that prompt, Lisa!
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Thank you, Jay.
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Lisa, these ghosts, My God. Your poem is lovely and chilling, how humanity gets appropriated by its hunger. the mud, the rapine, I thought of the farmer, plundering as a soldier, laughing, but no less inhuman that what is asked of him when doing his duty. The video made me weep.
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:( there is no happy ending for anyone from war. only rich f*cks getting richer. my dad’s brother died in ww2, and my dad was never the same after he returned from it…
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😢 so many ghosts
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You set the scene,and then it tore apart like weapons firing. The ending was horrific. Excellent writing, Lisa!
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Sara, thank you for your feedback on it. Much appreciated :)
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