(Partial Props to Tim O’Brien)
War is many things, but it cannot be generalized.
It is a mystery waiting to be solved,
A piece of the world so startling there was not yet a name
for it.
War is never ending,
While also ending too soon.
It had to end, and eventually it did.
When he died it was almost beautiful, the way the sunlight
Came around him and lifted him up and sucked him
High into a tree full of moss and vines and white blossoms.
You feel all kinds of things.
War is contradictory.
To generalize about war is like generalizing about peace.
Almost everything is true.
Almost nothing is true.
In the midst of evil you want to be a good man.
It is self-discovery.
You feel an intense, out-of-the-skin awareness
Of your living self.
Your truest self, the human being you want to be
And then become by the force of wanting it.
You want things you never knew you wanted.
With war, it’s difficult to separate what happened from what
seemed to happen and
It’s hard to tell what happened next.
The normal stuff is necessary to make you believe the truly
incredible craziness.
War makes you dead.
I liked how you said what war is and then isn't but it contrasted! This is a really good poem, you used good parts of Tim O'Brien's book and put them in the right places.
ReplyDeleteI really liked this. I liked the first line, "war is many things but cant be generalized" that sums up a lot of what we talked about in class.
ReplyDeleteGreat poem! It almost makes it seem like war and the man fighting it become one.
ReplyDelete