Best Heroism Poems
The Ideals of Captain America
Sponsored by: Robert James Liguori
Contest Judged: 11/16/2025 9:43:00 AM
( 3rd Place )
Written: October 22, 2025
Courage is waking when the night won’t end…
walking into the day on tired feet.
It is the quiet choice to help someone
even when your own heart feels heavy.
It is speaking what is right
even if your voice trembles.
It is staying when everyone else leaves
holding hope in small, stubborn ways.
Courage wears no crown of glory.
It bleeds in the dirt beside the fallen,
it lifts the shield even when the arm grows weak,
it fights not for victory
but because it must.
Courage is not the hero in a story,
it is the hand you reach out to another,
the deep breath you draw,
the step you force yourself to take,
even when fear feels louder than hope.
It is the soft voice inside that says;
"one more step"
the stubborn heartbeat that refuses to yield -
the quiet rise after every fall,
even when no one is there to see you stand.
Saddam Hussein has outlived all adjectives,
A demagogue, an anti-Christ, a dictator
Was he the hero larger-than-life images
A tyrant, Baghdad butcher, a monster.
Raising one’s voice against him will result in,
One’s daughter raped before his own eyes
Even they can lead a Kurdish woman
To sell her body to feed her two kids
One leader for heroism lampooned as a clown,
The Second, no doubt, a salesman of used cars.
The third, waging bloody wars, seeks the crown,
Fake cries, political motives, baking their breads
Undoubtedly it is about the politics of oil surely
Man who raised Saddam became a Saddam purely?.
=======================================
Third Place winner
Contest: Devil made me do it by Thvia Jetley
The Mexican midsummer sun
beamed down mercilessly, vertically,
so that men's heads and shoulders glowed
but their faces, and every human expression,
disappeared, dark and intense in the radiant noon,
and their bodies were illuminated
only for a moment at a time
with the pounding of arms and legs.
From almost as high as the sun,
thousands upon thousands upon thousands of eyes,
worshipful and expectant and desperate,
gazed downward, almost vertically, it seemed,
and the stands, foreboding and tall,
were part temple, part cauldron,
and saw some dreams come to fruition
and many shattered in despair.
On fields partially scorched and partially green,
the gateway to triumph was so deep
that heroes almost had time enough
to turn in celebration
half a moment after
their heroism had crossed the line,
yet half a moment before
it had nestled in the back of the net.
Story-tellers, men of many tongues,
celebrated caricatures in their own right,
screamed feverishly to the masses,
to tell of the drama as it unfolded,
rolling cameras projected moving images
and snapping cameras froze images in time,
and both launched their moments, moving and still,
into the eternity of divine drama.
A winter and a summer, and a change in between,
and a summer and a winter, and ten thousand miles away,
young boys and men, and a girl or two,
marvelled at the spectacle, and revelled in the glory,
and dreamed that it was theirs.
From three or six seasons, and ten thousand miles away,
I fell so deeply and dearly in love
with the Aztec summer's noon.
10th August 2018
What do I know of dedication, of devotion
I who have not fought on land or over ocean
What can I recount of sacrifice
I who was raised in America, in paradise
What can I tell of bravery, of heroism
I who pen poetry and witticism
And yet I’ve engaged in mortal combat, my dears
~ Been married now for nigh on 50 years
For the contest
Sober were the waves, that broke before the shore
The sky had turned a solemn gray
Like it never had before
There, no seagulls walked the sand
No cries from birds above
All marooned upon that beach
Were desperate for Gods love
They stood there in a line
That seem to never end
Where seconds turn to hours
And blood and water blend
But somewhere on the water
With a thousand tiny boats
Each man saw salvation
It's there they placed their hopes
While bombs rained down around them
Their end they felt was neigh
But God sent them angel
To dominate the sky
I have read about Dunkirk over the years and the movie was long over due, but awesome !
Dunkirk penned and posted August 5th 2017
They asked the old soldier to talk about his heroism…
explain that medal on his chest.
“It wasn’t that I was brave.” he said,
“just a little less frightened than the rest.”
There is no heroism in war
no glory in its glorification
nor beauty in its brutality.
There are no heroes in war
only soldiers entrenched
in bonded brotherhood.
There is only life and death
amid the screams of
living and dying
8/12/2017
submitted to – JPContest 6 – WAR AND HEROISM – Poetry Contest
Heroes and cowards share one thing in common.
Both Are Very Afraid.
Neither wants to do what needs to be done,
but the hero does it anyway.
Flying high into the sky,
I see you are sincere, kindhearted,
fascinating and interesting…
How it really was when it mattered,
what was a long, long summer day, that
you brought history to our front door…
You could get your teeth into that juicy story,
of remembrance, that was what kept you
from going crazy…
Human character acts differently in
each of us some can handle the stresses
of war and combat while others cannot…
How and why we must self- justify
what we do and how the world sees us
and how the world is in upheaval…
To see you as a hero and your passion
for freedom is overwhelming to say the
least, but, it is greatly appreciated by
the majority…
Keep up the good work,
for we do remember and appreciate
our freedom that you have fought
so hard for…
By Sandra Lea Hoban
©2008
Heroism
Would you run into a fire,
Earning a responder's ire?
Or jump into a swollen river
Just to give a sliver
Of a chance,
For further life and romance,
To a person drowning here,
All alone, full of fear?
Have you ever risked your neck
To rescue from a flaming wreck,
Someone that would surely perish,
If his life you did not cherish?
If you tried these, and you failed,
As a hero, would you be hailed?
Or vilified as a buffoon,
Said to be crazy as a loon?
Given a chance to stand tall,
Though the odds be rather small,
Would you hesitate,
Or think that “I'm just too late?”
What I'm really asking you,
For your answer true,
Would you be a hero,
Or just a shaking, quaking zero?
Cowardice and Heroism,
both share one thing in common.
The coward and the hero are both very much afraid.
Neither wants to do what needs to be done,
but the hero just happens to do it anyway.
Heroism Dream
They have forgotten the athletes.
Heroically, I run to grab
as much of the vaccine as I can find.
I dash through the tunnel
to where they are about to board the bus.
But I must return to make an appearence
at the dinner party
and I forget the needles.
You watch my sneaking back.
I can't do it all myself. I cry out,
in spite of my heroic intentions.
I lose the way as my opportunities vanish
There is something
wrong with my legs.
When all comes
down to it, poems
flow through my
brain like dreams,
ephemeral whisps
of egocentricity processed
through my eyes,
frozen self-centered ripples.
For Those Thrust into War's Maw
by Michael R. Burch
This poem is dedicated to Harvey Stanbrough, an ex-marine who was nominated for the 1999 Pulitzer Prize and has written passionately and eloquently about the horror and absurdity of war in “Lessons for a Barren Population.”
No, I will never know
what you saw or what you felt,
thrust into the maw of Eternity,
watching the mortars nightly
greedily making their rounds,
hearing the soft damp hiss
of men’s souls like helium escaping
their collapsing torn bodies,
or lying alone, feeling the great roar
of your own heart.
But I know:
there is a bitter knowledge
of death I have not achieved,
and in thankful ignorance,
and especially for my son
and for all who benefit so easily
at so unthinkable a price,
I thank you.
Published by Romantics Quarterly, Poetic Reflections and Poetry Super Highway as "Privilege." Keywords/Tags: Vietnam War, marines, military, service, honor, duty, bravery, heroism, maw, mortars, rounds, souls, escaping, bodies, corpses, death, heart, roar, bitter, knowledge, thanks, thank you, war, violence, USA, military, courage, patriotic, hero
Intrepid damsel,
a heroine unsung.
A willing martyr
with courage
unrivalled.
Unransomed captive
with a ransom
infinite.
She gladly faces
death with eternity
in view.
Like her lover before her,
she chooses to be
a sacrificial lamb
to the slaughter.
Leah Sharibu,
the heroine unsung.
She that chooses to mortify
her passions
for timeless paradise.
Hardly daunted by
Kalashnikovs and
thunderous explosives,
she inherits a world
deemed abstract by
unfaithful adherents.
He called your nation a 'fiction'
wishing you chaos and pain.
Like a savage grizzly intent on
your utter destruction.
He thought, so naively, that
you will buckle under his missiles' rain
triggering a new biblical exodus.
with a leader weak and tenuous
playing the NATO blame game,
harboring ambition of Soviet reclaim;
took his cues from Hitler's pincer attack,
backed by his convoy of artillery and tank;
hedging his bets on a Russian blitzkrieg
with little worries of his soldiers' fatigue.
Must watch Chaplin's Great Dictator
begging mercy from the creator.
You've now taught him a new word, Quagmire
familiar with his army's cold campfire.
his generals Know now the price of invading
a heroic nation praised the world over as outstanding;
your valor and sacrifice,
your blood and honor
turning history's dice.
Glory to Ukraine, to your
steadfastness and resolve,
to your triumph in this bloody brawl.