Your Favorite Poems

StillettoDoll · 05-29-2023, 05:36 AM

At The Vietnam Memorial

Today takes the color of the sun,
The air is filled with fine with it;
The dead leaves, lumped
and molted; flattened grass
take it like platinum;
the mall , simple, bare
plan of a tree standing
clothed and sudden in it's
clean explicable light

Across the muddy
grounds of Constitution
Gardens, we've come to find
your brothers name etched
in the long black muster
of sixteen years of war-
the earth walked raw
this morning by workman still
gravelling paths and people
brought here by dreams
more solemn than grief.

A kid in a sweater hurries
past us, face clenched
against tears. And couples,
gray haired, touching hands,
there midwestern faces calm
plain as the stenciled names
ranked on the black marble
in order of casualty,
the 57, 939 dead soldiers

R. Dana

StillettoDoll · 05-29-2023, 05:49 AM

Names

A few names tell it all'
the whole incredible history
of one generation , mine:
name we cannot manage
with a drum-roll , like Waterloo'
or pitch to the eloquence
of tragic Gettyburg.

Hiroshima sticks in our throats;
we choke on the bones of Buchenwald,
spit out the stones of Berlin
Who says Vietnam
burns his tongue,
and Mississippi, o Mississippi
scrubs out or mouths
till we cry mercy.

L. Mueller (1967)

05-29-2023, 05:36 AM	#1
StillettoDoll Senior Member How Do You Identify?: Femme Preferred Pronoun?: Lady Relationship Status: single Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Texas Posts: 2,824 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 2,779 Thanked 3,851 Times in 1,469 Posts Rep Power: 21474854	Memorial day poem At The Vietnam Memorial Today takes the color of the sun, The air is filled with fine with it; The dead leaves, lumped and molted; flattened grass take it like platinum; the mall , simple, bare plan of a tree standing clothed and sudden in it's clean explicable light Across the muddy grounds of Constitution Gardens, we've come to find your brothers name etched in the long black muster of sixteen years of war- the earth walked raw this morning by workman still gravelling paths and people brought here by dreams more solemn than grief. A kid in a sweater hurries past us, face clenched against tears. And couples, gray haired, touching hands, there midwestern faces calm plain as the stenciled names ranked on the black marble in order of casualty, the 57, 939 dead soldiers R. Dana __________________

05-29-2023, 05:49 AM	#2
StillettoDoll Senior Member How Do You Identify?: Femme Preferred Pronoun?: Lady Relationship Status: single Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Texas Posts: 2,824 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 2,779 Thanked 3,851 Times in 1,469 Posts Rep Power: 21474854	War poem Names A few names tell it all' the whole incredible history of one generation , mine: name we cannot manage with a drum-roll , like Waterloo' or pitch to the eloquence of tragic Gettyburg. Hiroshima sticks in our throats; we choke on the bones of Buchenwald, spit out the stones of Berlin Who says Vietnam burns his tongue, and Mississippi, o Mississippi scrubs out or mouths till we cry mercy. L. Mueller (1967) __________________