Another dawn moment
Another dawn crime
Another act of violence
In a violent desperate time.
The firing squad paraded
On the killing ground
Every rifle charged but
One with a blank round.
They carried out the victim
Tied him to a chair
Filled full of whiskey
Just to get him there.
As one the rifles fired
On the officer’s shout
And then the firing squad
Marched off and fallen out.
Through each mind
A single thought was drilling
Pleas God I had the blank
So I didn't do this killing.
No such hope for the officer
Who, with strained white face,
Had with single revolver shot
Performed the Coup de Grace
Another dawn moment
Another dawn crime
Another act of violence
In a violent desperate time.
No attempt at understanding
No attempt at any care
It should have been Kitchener
Or Haigh tied to that chair
It was said that one weapon carried a blank so that nobody was certain whether or not they had actually carried out the execution.
Apparently towards the end, to stiffen morale, 5 or so officers faced the firing squad.
Look at Tommy go
Watch him fall in neat khaki rows
Bravely led
Tommy bravely bled
20,000 went over the top
20,000 lay dead
Anna Pearl Longman
1900-1916
Dewey Hicks truly loved me.
Loved me as Mark loved Cleo,
Loved me as Pyramus loved Thisbe.
We took many a determined stroll,
With hands entangled delightedly,
Down the cool expectant streets,
Of this quiet Quaker town,
Across the strident fields at noon time,
Seeking a shady spot under the sun.
Happily we found one,
In the still sullen afternoon,
Of my final day on earth,
Way over by the Strong Ranch,
Hidden by the stately pampas plumes,
The ripe strawberry field of the Needham family;
Dewey and me settled in silence that day,
Me feeding him there,
His blond crown upon my brown carriage,
One moist sweet strawberry at a time,
No doubt, our finest moment as lovers.
But then, as with all things in life,
Written and unwritten,
It ended as my heart stopped,
Stopped as a clock unwound in time,
There in the still summer heat,
Of this quiet Quaker town.
Rosie Ortiz
1916-1936
The stars are my friends.
They know of my many secrets.
They remember my private musings.
The stars cried tears for me.
They placed fragrant roses upon my bosom.
I sought to comfort them in their grief.
I tried to hold them close in my embraces.
Nightly now, I see them in my gazes.
Midnight now, I hear their muted whimperings.
What can I say to them?
What words of sweet solace can I give?
A single blade of sweet grass understands.
A solitary leaf of autumn knowingly descends;
There is no darkness in death;
There is only love,
And light eternal.
Harry Boatman
1879-1916
It is true my friends.
A man thinks of many things
While on his deathbed.
A man remembers and reflects and responds.
He responds, as with a child, to
The insistent pleadings and proddings of the wall clock,
Responds and obeys, as with a woman expecting, to
The cosmic commands of the moody evening tides.
The incredible colossal circling globe, of
Spasm and sequence, of eyes opening and shutting.
And there it was my friends!
My last orgasmic breath!
My final desperate inhalation!
My final impeccable embrace!
And when it happened,
When my closing eyes saw sable night at noon time,
Two black and yellow butterflies,
Mating mindlessly in the side garden,
Took me by spirit
High above the wanton walnut trees here,
And at last, I saw
The soft benevolent eyes of sweet Jesus
Beckoning me to join him, there!
From the blinding masticating center
Of the rising resplendent sun.
Leander Skumfeldt
1864-1916
Truly my friends
Dying was my greatest fear, while alive.
My most dreaded
Most detested of future experiences.
Dying, finally, was my greatest achievement
My greatest joy!
My highest calling!
The summit of my scant human existence!
Old Whittier town,
I have missed you indeed,
Have missed the bumpy rides by wagon and horse
To Los Coyotes,
Have missed the starry nights of suave embraces
In Sycamore Canyon.
With eyes wide open
I saw the irony of my life,
There, on a long table at Pio Pico.
There, amidst the old pottery and the sombreros
A single pressed morning glory
From the Spanish Bible of The Don,
A single fragile fading flower,
A metaphor for a sad but ecstatic soul,
My somber sullen soaring soul!
Be it known: I lived my life quietly
In the fear of God, and
I died my death screaming curses to his face!
But, truly my friends, truly
I found brazen beauty
Found unimagined enticings
In the final gasping exhalation
Of my last heartbeat.
Brother, Brother
Father, Son
Nephew, Cousin
Lay as one.
Some together
Some alone
Some are named
And some unknown.
Even the dead reject this blasted earth.
The ground, such as it is,
Is freshly Antidiluvean,
The corpses swim within its tumbled, heaving masses
Blood and mud the mortar
Holding the chaos together.
The sun is weak,
Ashamed to break the haze
To bring to light the obscenities transpiring here.
The whistles blow
The troglodytes emerge
From their respective holes,
Staggering towards one another
Through watery craters
Over the mincemeat of comrades
To add themselves to the swimming sacrifice
Constantly on offer
To the insatiable, sole diety of this place,
The Mud-God, Futility.
They are men no more,
Those who struggle 'neath
The leaden skies
The wan sun
Of the sodden moonscape
That is Passchendale.
They are only raging beasts
Trading pain for pain,
All trace of cause or reason
Lost in the maelstrom of their collective misery -
The only escape
Is to slay and to be slain;
To join the bitter shades
Ascending with the fog and smoke
Through the wall of cloud above,
To vanish into the icy deeps
Among the far, impassive stars.
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